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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/storiedwestindieOOober 



Hppletons' 1bome IReaMnQ IBookQ 

EDITED BY 

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL. D. 

UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 



DIVISION III 

History 



APPLETONS' HOME READING BOOKS 



THE 

STORIED WEST INDIES 



BY 



FREDERICK A. OBER 

author of spain, puerto rico and its resources, 

travels in mexico, in the wake of columbus, 

crusoe's island, camps in the caribbees, 

a life of josephine, etc. 




NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1900 



SECONDCOPY, 



5516 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

Library of Congreee* 
Office of the 

JUN 1 3 1900 

Register of Copyright* 

a. /*o</y 

o ♦ .. ■ * - h "^^ 

JUN161900 ) 



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*>orTo< 



j 



63341 

Copyright, 1900, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



0-3359 r eo :. 



IXTEODUCTIOX TO THE HOME EEADIXG 
BOOK SEEIES BY THE EDITOR. 



The new education takes two important direc- 
tions — one of these is toward original observation, 
requiring the pupil to test and verify what is taught 
him at school by his own experiments. The infor- 
mation that he learns from books or hears from his 
teachers lips must be assimilated by incorporating it 
with his own experience. 

The other direction pointed out by the new edu- 
cation is systematic home reading. It forms a part of 
school extension of all kinds. The so-called " Univer- 
sity Extension " that originated at Cambridge and Ox- 
ford has as its chief feature the aid of home reading by 
lectures and round-table discussions, led or conducted 
by experts who also lay out the course of reading. 
The Chautauquan movement in this country prescribes 
a series of excellent books and furnishes for a goodly 
number of its readers annual courses of lectures. The 
teachers' reading circles that exist in many States pre- 
scribe the books to be read, and publish some analysis, 
commentary, or catechism to aid the members. 

Home reading, it seems, furnishes the essential 
basis of this great movement to extend education 



vi THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

beyond the school and to make self -culture a habit 
of life. 

Looking more carefully at the difference between 
the two directions of the new education we can see 
what each accomplishes. There is first an effort to 
train the original powers of the individual and make 
him self -active, quick at observation, and free in his 
thinking. Next, the new education endeavors, by the 
reading of books and the study of the wisdom of the 
race, to make the child or youth a participator in the 
results of experience of all mankind. 

These two movements may be made antagonistic 
by poor teaching. The book knowledge, containing as 
it does the precious lesson of human experience, may 
be so taught as to bring with it only dead rules of 
conduct, only dead scraps of information, and no 
stimulant to original thinking. Its contents may be 
memorized without being understood. On the other 
hand, the self -activity of the child may be stimulated 
at the expense of his social well-being — his originality 
may be cultivated at the expense of his rationality. 
If he is taught persistently to have his own way, to 
trust only his own senses, to cling to his own opinions 
heedless of the experience of his fellows, he is pre- 
paring for an unsuccessful, misanthropic career, and 
is likely enough to end his life in a madhouse. 

It is admitted that a too exclusive study of the 
knowledge found in books, the knowledge which is 
aggregated from the experience and thought of other 
people, may result in loading the mind of the pupil 
with material which he can not use to advantage. 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION vii 

Some minds are so full of lumber that there is no 
space left to set up a workshop. The necessity of 
uniting both of these directions of intellectual activity 
in the schools is therefore obvious, but we must not, 
in this place, fall into the error of supposing that it is 
the oral instruction in school and the personal influ- 
ence of the teacher alone that excites the pupil to ac- 
tivity. Book instruction is not always dry and theo- 
retical. The very persons who declaim against the 
book, and praise in such strong terms the self -activity 
of the pupil and original research, are mostly persons 
who have received their practical impulse from read- 
ing the writings of educational reformers. Very few 
persons have received an impulse from personal con- 
tact with inspiring teachers compared with the num- 
ber that have been aroused by reading such books as 
Herbert Spencer's Treatise on Education, Rousseau's 
Emile, Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude, Francis 
W. Parker's Talks about Teaching, G. Stanley 
HalFs Pedagogical Seminary. Think in this connec- 
tion, too, of the impulse to observation in natural sci- 
ence produced by such books as those of Hugh Miller, 
Faraday, Tyndall, Huxley, Agassiz, and Darwin, 

The new scientific book is different from the old. 
The old style book of science gave dead results where 
the new one gives not only the results, but a minute 
account of the method employed in reaching those re- 
sults. An insight into the method employed in dis- 
covery trains the reader into a naturalist, an historian, 
a sociologist. The books of the writers above named 
have done more to stimulate original research on the 



Vlll THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

part of their readers than all other influences com- 
bined. 

It is therefore much more a matter of importance 
to get the right kind of book than to get a living 
teacher. The book which teaches results, and at the 
same time gives in an intelligible manner the steps of 
discovery and the methods employed, is a book 
which will stimulate the student to repeat the ex- 
periments described and get beyond them into fields 
of original research himself. Every one remem- 
bers the published lectures of Faraday on chemistry, 
which exercised a wide influence in changing the 
style of books on natural science, causing them to 
deal with method more than results, and thus train 
the reader's power of conducting original research. 
Robinson Crusoe for nearly two hundred years has 
aroused the spirit of adventure and prompted young 
men to resort to the border lands of civilization. A 
library of home reading should contain books that in- 
cite to self-activity and arouse the spirit of inquiry. 
The books should treat of methods of discovery and 
evolution. All nature is unified by the discovery of 
the law of evolution. Each and every being in the 
world is now explained by the process of development 
to which it belongs. Every fact now throws light on 
all the others by illustrating the process of growth in 
which each has its end and aim. 

The Home Eeading Books are to be classed as 
follows : 

First Division. Natural history, including popular 
scientific treatises on plants and animals, and also de- 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION ix 

scriptions of geographical localities. The branch of 
study in the district school course which corresponds 
to this is geography. Travels and sojourns in distant 
lands ; special writings which treat of this or that 
animal or plant, or family of animals or plants ; any- 
thing that relates to organic nature or to meteorol- 
ogy, or descriptive astronomy may be placed in this 
class. 

Second Division. Whatever relates to physics or 
natural philosophy, to the statics or dynamics of air or 
water or light or electricity, or to the properties of 
matter ; whatever relates to chemistry, either organic 
or inorganic — books on these subjects belong to the 
class that relates to what is inorganic. Even the so- 
called organic chemistry relates to the analysis of 
organic bodies into their inorganic compounds. 

Third Division. History, biography, and ethnol- 
ogy. Books relating to the lives of individuals ; to 
the social life of the nation ; to the collisions of na- 
tions in war, as well as to the aid that one nation 
gives to another through commerce in times of peace; 
books on ethnology relating to the modes of life of 
savage or civilized peoples ; on primitive manners 
and customs — books on these subjects belong to the 
third class, relating particularly to the human will, 
not merely the individual will but the social will, 
the will of the tribe or nation ; and to this third 
class belong also books on ethics and morals, and 
on forms of government and laws, and what is in- 
cluded under the term civics, or the duties of citi- 
zenship. 



x THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Fourth Division. The fourth class of books in- 
cludes more especially literature and works that make 
known the beautiful in such departments as sculpture, 
painting, architecture and music. Literature and art 
show human nature in the form of feelings, emotions, 
and aspirations, and they show how these feelings 
lead over to deeds and to clear thoughts. This de- 
partment of books is perhaps more important than 
any other in our home reading, inasmuch as it teaches 
a knowledge of human nature and enables us to un- 
derstand the motives that lead our fellow-men to 
action. 

Plan for Use as Supplementary Reading. 

The first work of the child in the school is to 
learn to recognize in a printed form the words that 
are familiar to him by ear. These words constitute 
what is called the colloquial vocabulary. They are 
words that he has come to know from having heard 
them used by the members of his family and by his 
playmates. He uses these words himself with con- 
siderable skill, but what he knows by ear he does not 
yet know by si^ht. It will require many weeks, 
many months even, of constant effort at reading the 
printed page to bring him to the point where the 
sight of the written word brings up as much to his 
mind as the sound of the spoken word. But patience 
and practice will by and by make the printed word 
far more suggestive than the spoken word, as every 
scholar may testify. 

In order to bring about this familiarity with the 



EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION xi 

printed word it has been found necessary to re-en- 
force the reading in the school by supplementary 
reading at home. Books of the same grade of diffi- 
culty with the reader used in school are to be pro- 
vided for the pupil. They must be so interesting 
to him that he will read them at home, using his time 
before and after school, and even his holidays, for 
this purpose. 

But this matter of familiarizing the child with the 
printed word is only one half of the object aimed at 
by the supplementary home reading. He should 
read that which interests him. He should read that 
which will increase his power in making deeper 
studies, and what he reads should tend to correct his 
habits of observation. Step by step he should be 
initiated into the scientific method. Too many ele- 
mentary books fail to teach the scientific method be- 
cause they point out in an unsystematic way only 
those features of the object which the untutored 
senses of the pupil would discover at first glance. It 
is not useful to tell the child to observe a piece of 
chalk and see that it is white, more or less friable, 
and that it makes a mark on a fence or a wall. Sci- 
entific observation goes immediately behind the facts 
which lie obvious to a superficial investigationo 
Above all, it directs attention to such features of the 
object as relate it to its environment. It directs at- 
tention to the features that have a causal influence in 
making the object what it is and in extending its 
effects to other objects. Science discovers the recip- 
rocal action of objects one upon another. 



xn THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

After the child has learned how to observe what 
is essentia] in one class of objects he is in a measure 
fitted to observe for himself all objects that resemble 
this class. After he has learned how to observe the 
seeds of the milkweed, he is partially prepared to 
observe the seeds of the dandelion, the burdock, and 
the thistle. After he has learned how to study the 
history of his native country, he has acquired some 
ability to study the history of England and Scotland 
or France or Germany. In the same way the daily 
preparation of his reading lesson at school aids him 
to read a story of Dickens or Walter Scott. 

The teacher of a school will know how to obtain 
a small sum to invest in supplementary reading. In 
a graded school of four hundred pupils ten books of 
each number are sufficient, one set of ten books to be 
loaned the first week to the best pupils in one of the 
rooms, the next week to the ten pupils next in ability. 
On Monday afternoon a discussion should be held 
over the topics of interest to the pupils who have 
read the book. The pupils who have not yet read 
the book will become interested, and await anxiously 
their turn for the loan of the desired volume. Another 
set of ten books of a higher grade may be used in the 
same way in a room containing more advanced pupils. 
The older pupils who have left school, and also the 
parents, should avail themselves of the opportunity to 
read the books brought home from school. Thus is 
begun that continuous education by means of the pub- 
lic library which is not limited to the school period, 
but lasts through life. W. T. Harris. 

Washington, D. C, Nov. 16, 1896. 



FEE FACE 



Assuming that no literary work is considered 
complete without its proem, or introduction, this 
shall be my excuse for narrating how this particular 
book came into being. 

I can hardly claim that it was by chance; yet 
it resulted indirectly from my first visit to the West 
Indies, in 1877, when, as an ornithologist ardently 
in love with Nature, I went there in search of 
birds. My self-imposed task took me into the forests 
and mountains, to dwell with the Carib Indians and 
negroes, as well as with the white cultivators of the 
coast plantations. From them I obtained a great 
deal of information that seemed to me of value, aside 
from that relevant to the subject of my investiga- 
tions. 

I learned, for instance, of century-old traditions, 
quaint folklore stories, pirate yarns and buccaneer 
tales. Now and again, as in Dominica and Guade- 



xiv Till*: STORIED WEST INDIES 

loupe, Cuba and the Bahamas, 1 crossed the trail of 
Columbus, and, becoming interested, procured all the 
hooks thai told of Ids discoveries, and refreshed my 
memory of historical events which ever after were 
real and vivid to me. 

Though possessed of a love for adventure and 
romanticism, 1 was not entirely dominated by it, 
nor by my desire to exhaustively exploit the avi- 
fauna, or bird life, of the Antilles; for a Tier I had 
completed this work (which consumed the greater 
part of three years and resulted in the addition of 
twenty-two new birds to the known species of the 
world) I felt impelled to sock a broader field. 

In my wanderings throughout the islands dur- 
ing the years 1ST 7 'SO, I frequently met with re- 
minders of Columbus; in Martinique I gathered 
material which eventuated, many years after, in a 
Life o( the Empress Josephine; and in Tobago imi- 
tated Defoe's hero — as some readers of my Crusoe's 
Island may recall. 

Those chance meetings with great personages 
gave me a relish for historical investigation; and as 
it seemed, after visiting Mexico, Cuba, the Spanish 
Main, etc., that all West Indian roads lead back 



PREFACE xv 

to Spain, I went to that country to learn something 
more of American history. Hispano- American civili- 
zation, I found, had its origin in, or was strongly im- 
pressed by, the Moorish invasion from Africa centu- 
ries ago; so to Xorth Africa I went also, returning 
thence to follow the course of the first Spanish voy- 
ages from inception to ending. 

These excursions were on my own initiative and 
personal account entirely; but in 1891 I received a 
commission from our Government to visit every 
island of importance in the Antilles, and seek out 
whatever vestiges remained of the early settlements. 
This work, for which I received a medal from the 
Columbian Exposition of 1893, was in a certain sense 
complementary to all that I had done before, and 
enabled me to make a complete historical survey of 
the West Indies from the standpoint of personal ob- 
servation. 

Thus it will be seen that my researches, though 

pursued intermittently and in a somewhat desultory 

manner, extended over a period of quite twenty 

years. They resulted in a mass of material, from 

which I have selected what appears to me to be the 

most interesting events of Antillean history. 
2 



XVI THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

That my work is in any sense complete or ex- 
haustive I dare not venture to assume, but trust 
it will at least quicken the interest already awakened 
by recent great events in that glorious archipelago 
inhabited by diverse nationalities, lying adjacent 
to both continents of the Western Hemisphere. 

Frederick A. Ober. 

New York, February, 1900. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. — San Salvador 

II. — Columbus and Cuba 
III. — The search for Cipango 
IV. — An Indian paradise. 

V. — Fruits of the first voyage . 
VI. — The cannibal Caribs 
VII. — First forts and settlements 
VIII. — The last Caciques .... 
IX. — Destruction of the Indians . 

X. — A CITY OF SAD MEMORIES . 

XI. — More about Santo Domingo . 
XII. — Buccaneers and treasure seekers 
XIII. — The conquest of Haiti . 
XIV. — Black kings and emperors . 
XV. — Santiago and Havana 
XVI. — Jamaica and the Maroons 
XVII. — Puerto Rico and the Virgin Isles 
XVIII. — In the volcanic chain . 
XIX. — Historic battlefields . 
XX. — Barbadoes, Tobago, and Trinidad 



PAGE 

1 

13 

25 

37 

48 

59 

73 

83 

97 

111 

126 

140 

156 

168 

184 

203 

223 

240 

251 

265 



LIST OF ILLUSTKATIOKS 



Supposed landing place of Columbus, 

Bahamas .... 
Route to and through the Bahamas 
Sea grape and palmetto, Watling's Island 
Lagoon on Watling's Island . 
A country scene in Cuba . 
Off Cape San Antonio, Cuba . 
Contour of coast near Jibara . 
Baracoa and Yunque Mountain 
The seat in the shape of a beast 
Seat carved of stone (Bahamas) 
Indians and canoe. (From an old print) 
Earliest map of Hispaniola 
Pestle of stone, with carved face 
Monsters of the air and deep. (From an 
The Santa Maria 
A portrait of Columbus . . . 
The guira, upper and lower view 
The second voyage, 1493 . 
The waterfall (Guadeloupe) 
A Carib girl. (From a photograph) 
A Carib cookhouse (Dominica) 
Old Indians of Dominica . 
A Carib canoe . 
The site of Isabella . 
Armor of Columbus . 
The church of Santo Cerro 
Fort Concepcion de la Vega 
Bell tower of the church . 
Bringing gold to Columbus 
First forts and settlements 



Watling's Island, 
Frontispiece 



old 



engraving) 



4 

6 

11 

15 
16 
18 
20 
22 
26 
30 
34 
39 
42 
45 
50 
58 
60 
64 
66 
71 
74 
76 
79 
81 
84 
85 
87 
90 
95 



XX THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

PAGE 

Preparing the feast. (From an old print) .... 99 

Indian implements, Hispaniola 102 

A battle between Spaniards and Indians .... 114 

Interior of Santo Domingo church 120 

Bartolome de Las Casas 124 

Interior of the cathedral, Santo Domingo .... 129 

Leaden casket found in 1877 131 

Cloister corridor, monastery of San Francisco, Santo Domingo 135 

Por Castilla y por Leon, Nuevo Mundo, Hallo Colon . . 139 

Bohios of the buccaneers 144 

Indians boucanning fish 147 

Old Spanish swords . 154 

Market square, Cape Haitien 160 

Toussaint L'Ouverture ........ 167 

General Jean Jacques Dessalines 170 

A court in Sans Souci . . . . . . . 179 

King Henry I, of Haiti 182 

A cartman of Cuba 185 

The Cuban volante 192 

Havana in the seventeenth century .197 

A milkman of Havana 200 

A fair Havanese 202 

Saint Ann's Bay, near Christopher's Cove, Jamaica . .204 

A country road near Kingston 217 

Aboriginal mealing stones, Jamaica 222 

Casa Blanca, Ponce de Leon's castle 225 

" Mammiform " stones, Puerto Rico (aboriginal carvings) . 227 

Sea wall and governor's palace, San Juan .... 229 

Aboriginal " mask " and "collar," Puerto Rico (carved stone) 232 
Harbor of Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas . . . .234 

Date palms, Charlotte Amalie 238 

A coast plantation, Santa Cruz . . . • • 243 

In the crater of Mount Misery 247 

Old sugar mill, La Pagerie estate 254 

The church at Trois Islet 258 

" His Majesty's ship Diamond Rock " 266 

Carib boys at play, Saint Vincent 271 

Third and fourth voyages of Columbus to the West Indies . 277 

A cocoa palm grove 281 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



CHAPTEK I 

SAN SALVADOR 

Chief among the Spanish war ships shattered and 
sunk by the American fleet off Santiago de Cuba, on 
the 3d of July, 1898, was a gallant cruiser of seven 
thousand tons, named, after a princess of Spain, the 
Maria Teresa. As flagship of Admiral Cervera's 
unfortunate squadron, she had led the doomed ships 
on their forlorn hope, and was one of the first to 
be overwhelmed by the terrible tornado of shot and 
shell that drove her, in a sinking condition, upon 
the Cuban strand. A few months later some naval 
engineers succeeded in floating her, and the hope was 
indulged that she might become an ornamental, if 
not a useful, member of the navy to which the ships 
that had wrought her injuries belonged. She was 
braced and strengthened, her gaping wounds were 
closed temporarily, and, like a crippled bird, she 
started on a voyage to the United States. All went 
well until the Bahamas were reached, when a storm 
arose, and, perforce, she was cast loose, after the 
crew aboard had been taken off by the ship having 
her in tow. It was expected that the Maria Teresa 

1 



2 THE STOKIED WEST INDIES 

would founder, being in such a disabled condition; 
but the convoy rode out the storm and then cruised 
about, as in duty bound, though without finding any 
trace of the quondam captive, and so reported on 
arrival in port. 

Scarcely, however, had this news been given out 
when a strange rumor became current, to the effect 
that the cruiser had not sunk, after all, but had her- 
self sought a last resting place for her bones on a 
coral reef off the southeastern extremity of Cat 
Island, one of the historic links in the Bahama chain. 
And the strangest feature of this romantic incident is 
that this vessel, bearing the name of a seventeenth- 
century infanta of Spain, had gone ashore off Co- 
lumbus Point ! 

Another coincidence claims our attention in this 
connection. When the wreckers found the ship she 
was cradled on a coral reef, bolt upright; and they 
reported that soon after she struck, her only passen- 
ger, a large cat, leaped ashore and ran into the 
woods. When and by whom Cat Island received its 
distinctive name has never been determined, but it 
would seem that at last it is well applied. 

This island, forty-two miles in length and from 
three to four in breadth, lies about midway the Ba- 
hamas, a thousand miles from the port of New York, 
and in its general outline resembles Italy, being 
shaped like a boot. Columbus Point, which Wash- 
ington Irving and many others claimed was the first 
landfall of the " Great Admiral," lies at the heel of 
the boot, where the shore is bold and rocky, rough 
and shelterless. The southern extremity of the 



SAN SALVADOR 3 

island, which in some places is from two hundred to 
four hundred feet in height, has a few great white 
cliffs, which form conspicuous landmarks. Like most 
of the islands of this archipelago, this one is almost 
completely inclosed within harrier reefs. 

These facts are mentioned because there is an 
interest attaching to some island of the Bahamas, as 
connected with the first voyage to America, when, on 
that memorable morning, the 12th of October, 1492, 
boats from the caravels of Columbus landed on a 
reef - inclosed shore. Its native name was Guana- 
hani; but, says Columbus, "to the first island I 
found I gave the name of San Salvador, in remem- 
brance of His High Majesty, who hath so marvel- 
ously brought all these things to pass." It is unfor- 
tunate that the original journal kept by Columbus 
for the perusal of his sovereigns was lost, and the 
only portion copied neglects to give the latitude and 
longitude of the first landfall and landing place in 
the Xew World. Bishop Las Casas, his renowned con- 
temporary, had access to this journal and made ex- 
cerpts from it; but, not being a scientific man, he 
omitted the very data which Columbus, as a trained 
navigator, would have considered most important. 

So it is that during the centuries that have passed 
since the advent of Columbus here, his first landing 
place has been wrapped in mystery — or, rather, has 
not been satisfactorily determined. One thing, how- 
ever, is now known: that the veritable isle of San 
Salvador, or Guanahani, is not Cat Island, as for so 
many years erroneously believed. This we may 
say: That it is one of the Bahama Islands, that it 



4 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

lies within fifty miles of Cat Island, either northwest 
or southeast, and that Columbus threaded his way 
through the archipelago, before he reached and ex- 
plored the north coast of Cuba. 




FIRST VOYAGE 
N 



E A 2f 



Route to and through the Bahamas. 

It may be well, after all, that some of the prob- 
lems of history and of exploration are left for the 
present generation to solve; and who knows but that 
some of my readers may have the pleasure of adding 
to the sum of information now possessed by the 
world? It will be a sad prospect, will it not, when 
there are no more countries to explore and no more 
worlds to conquer? At all events, though I myself 
have visited and examined all the islands of impor- 



SAN SALVADOR 5 

tance in the Bahamas, and have done so under the 
most favorable auspices, I can not affirm that I know 
exactly where Columbus landed. The island upon 
which I think he landed (and my opinion is sup- 
ported by many persons who have investigated the 
subject) is that known as Watlmg's, named after one 
of the old sea rovers of the archipelago many years 
ago. It lies about fifty miles to the eastward of Co- 
lumbus Point, is twelve miles in length by seven in 
width, and is shaped like a pear, with its stem at the 
southern end. 

Whatever the impulse may have been — but I 
think it arose from a desire to verify the accounts I 
had read in old histories — it so happened that I one 
day found myself on the north coast of Watling's 
Island, and looking upon what, to my mind, was the 
very spot where, just four hundred years before, 
Columbus landed. Before me was a long, curving 
beach of sparkling sand about two miles in length; 
off shore, from a few hundred yards distant to about 
half a mile, lay coral reefs, where the great waves 
broke and threw up sheets of foam; but within this 
barrier the water was as calm as the surface of a 
pond sheltered by surrounding hills. Seashells on the 
beach and sea birds hovering over, sprays of Sargasso 
weed showing gold-green in the blue water, rainbow- 
hued flying fish glancing in the sunlight — all these 
were seen, also, by Columbus and his sailors. And it 
is as silent now as when they landed here. The only 
sounds that break the stillness are the shrieks of the 
sea birds and the roar of the breakers on the coral 
ledges. It is, indeed, more lonely now than then, for, 



(5 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

according to Columbus himself, the shore was swarm- 
ing with those copper-colored people — the first of 
their kind he had ever seen — whom he called Indians. 
My readers, of course, know why: because he thought 
he had landed on the coast of India, and inferred that 
these naked inhabitants of Guanahani were subjects 




Sea grape and palmetto, Watling's Island. 

of the Great Khan whose land and court he was 
seeking. 



It 



is 



lonely here now, and sad. The islands 



lie within the shadow of a terrible tragedy, the silver- 
sanded beaches are stained with blood; for, of all 
the laughing, innocent, and happy inhabitants of 
Guanahani who flocked to the boats by hundreds 
and thousands to see those " heaven-descended men," 



SAN SALVADOR 7 

who paddled off to the caravels in their canoes, and 
who gave the Spaniards freely all they had, not a 
single descendant has survived to the present time. 
Columbus left the Indians without doing harm to 
any of them, and for years after his visit no Spaniard 
came to the Bahamas; but later on, when the Indians 
of Haiti had been decimated by their severe labor 
in the mines, and others were needed to take their 
places, the Lucayans (as they were called) were torn 
from their homes and transported. All those who 
were not carried into captivity were murdered, and 
so the islands were left desolate. Relics of these 
people are now and then found here, and I myself 
have seen many fragments of skulls, shards of their 
crude pottery, and some " celts," or stone spear and 
arrow heads. These last-named the present dwellers 
in the Bahamas (mostly of African descent) call 
" thunderbolts," having a belief that they are of 
celestial origin, and come down from the clouds dur- 
ing thunderstorms. 

In place of the aboriginal inhabitants of San Sal- 
vador, to-day we find a population of about six hun- 
dred people, who gain a miserable living from the 
scant soil and the sea, by the most primitive kind of 
agriculture, fishing, and " couching." The beautiful 
species of conchs called the " king " and " queen " 
are found here in abundance, and also that which 
yields the rare pink pearls; in fact, from the nature 
of their most common occupation the natives of the 
Bahamas are known as " Conchs," throughout the 
islands. 

Four hundred years ago the island was covered 



8 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

with a luxuriant vegetation; but to-day, though it is 
situated to the south of the northern tropic, the 
growth is thin, and, while composed of many odor- 
iferous plants, is not, strictly speaking, tropical. 

Alongshore grow the dwarf palmetto and the 
sea grape, the latter having racemes of white flowers 
and a fruit upon which the parrots and wild pigeons 
feed. Mahogany is found in the interior; also the 
mastic, which is so hard that the old palisadoes made 
with it by military engineers a hundred years ago, 
are still in good preservation. Then there are the 
ironwood, lignum-vitse, bullet wood, and the candle 
wood, from which last-named, as it is so resinous, the 
natives made their torches. Probably the very torch 
that gave the light Columbus saw as he approached 
the island, was made of this wood. The " butter- 
bough," another native shrub, is so named from the 
glossy surface of its leaves, which furnish food for 
cattle, while the " corkwood " affords a good substi- 
tute for real cork, and is used by the negro fishermen 
to float their nets. 

The aborigines used the leaves of the palm for 
thatching their huts, and from the native cotton, 
found here by Columbus in great abundance, they 
spun thread which they wove into hammocks, and 
the girdles which they sometimes wore around their 
waists. After Columbus had left San Salvador, and 
was on his way to the second island of the chain, 
which he had seen from the first, he overtook an 
Indian paddling a canoe, and " carrying a piece of 
such bread as they eat [cassava] , a calabash of water, 
a little black earth with which they paint themselves, 



SAN SALVADOR 9 

and the dry leaves of an herb they very much value, 
because it is wholesome and has a sweet scent." 
This sweet-scented herb was probably the cascarilla 
(Croton eleutheria), which has a pungent, spicy taste, 
and when burned emits a musky odor. The natives 
knew of its virtues as a tonic and febrifuge, from 
the earliest times. As its specific name comes from 
Eleuthera, that island in the Bahamas where it was 
first found, this fact goes far to prove that it may 
have been there that Columbus first landed, instead 
of at Watling's, or farther south. This hint is thrown 
out for future explorers as well worth considering. 

There is one fruit the natives of the Bahamas 
possessed, and which we must not omit to mention — 
the pineapple — which grew luxuriantly here, and to- 
day is a source of income to the inhabitants. Its 
botanical name betrays its origin, for ananassa is but 
the Latinized form of the aboriginal anana. Aside 
from the fruits and vegetables indigenous here, such 
as have been mentioned, and to which should be 
added maize or Indian corn, the cocoanut (an exotic, 
but probably brought here by the sea currents long 
before the advent of Europeans), and various roots 
and berries, the aborigines obtained little from the 
earth. But the sea was a bountiful mother, and 
yielded them fish in great variety, as well as turtles, 
conchs, mussels, lobsters, and crayfish. They had 
no large animals, and about the only living things 
Columbus saw domesticated here were the native 
parrots. There were also iguanas, which, as they 
live mainly in the trees and bushes, were not at first 
observed by the Spaniards. The parrots of San Sal- 



10 



TIIH STORIED WEST INDIES 



vador long ago disappeared, but Hocks of them are 

still seen in Acklin Island, soiiili by east of Watling's. 
In the second or third island visited Columbus saw 
and noted the mocking birds, which ho called night- 
ingales; but lie was charmed with their ravishing 
music, and compared them, to their great advantage, 
with the songsters of Andalusia. 

Now, I have inferred that this first voyage to 

America is already so familiar to my readers that it 
will not be necessary to repeat what other writers 
have recorded. It is what Columbus found here, and 

the forgotten or neglected facts leading up to, as well 
as forming a portion of, the earlier history of the 

West Indies, to which I would direct attention. 

( iolumbus, then, had at last secured his caravels 

and his sailors, had fared forth from Palos, had 
touched at the (binaries or Fortunate Islands, and 
nearly crossed the wide expanse of unknown waters 

lying between Europe and the goal of his am- 
bitions. "Two hours after midnight," according to 

llerrera, the old Spanish historian, "the caravel 
Pinta, being always ahead, made signs of land, which 
was first discovered by a sailor named Roderick de 

Triana. . . . When day appeared they saw it was 
an island, much wooded, well watered, and having 
a lake in the middle." 

llerrera says it was a fresh-water lake; but if it 
were salt or brackish the description will apply to 
Wat line's. According to the journal kept by Co- 
lumbus, the vessels lay \o just outside the reefs (it is 
a wonder they had not run upon them in the night), 
from which point ho describes the view: tk This island 



SAN SALVADOR 



11 



is large and level [Cat Island is hilly], has a very 
large lagoon in the middle, and is all covered with ver- 
dure most pleasing to the eye." On Sunday, October 
14th, he writes in his journal: " At dawn I ordered 
the boats of the ship and of the caravels to be made 
ready, and went along the island. 1 was afraid of 
a reef of rocks which entirely surrounds it, although 




Lagoon on Watling's Island. 

there; is within depth and ample harbor for all the 
vessels of Christendom, but the entrance is narrow." 
The " vessels of Christendom " were small and 
few in number those days, so the harbor at the north 
end of Watling's Island will answer well the pur- 
pose, having all the peculiar natural features men- 
tioned by Columbus. "It is true," he says, "that 
the interior of the belt contains some rocks, but the 
sea there is as still as a well; " the accuracy of whieh 
statement I myself have verified. 



12 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Columbus sailed on toward Cuba, and never re- 
turned to tlie Bahamas. In 1512, Ponce de Leon 
came here to question the natives about the fabled 
Fountain of Youth, which he was then seeking; and 
again in 1521, on his way to Florida. It is worthy 
of note that in the year 1893 a vessel built after the 
pattern of the Santa Maria sailed over the course fol- 
lowed by Columbus from Spain in 1492, and touched 
at San Salvador, on its way to the Columbian Ex- 
position. 

The Bahamas were depopulated during the first 
quarter of the sixteenth century, and for more than 
a hundred years they lay desolate. Finally, about 
1628, the English gained a foothold here, and, though 
the archipelago soon became the resort of pirates, 
buccaneers, wreckers, and smugglers, yet civilization 
flourished apace, and eventually prevailed. 



CHAPTEE II 

COLUMBUS AND CUBA 

" The most beautiful island that eyes ever be- 
held, full of excellent ports and profound rivers; . . . 
one could live there forever! " 

In this strain Columbus wrote of the first island 
he discovered, when he had left the chain of the 
Bahamas and reached another land, after three days 
of sailing to the southward. It matters not much 
just where he first landed in Cuba; but while his 
earliest biographers in this century claimed the spot 
to be the Bay of Nuevitas, now the port of Puerto 
Principe, later writers have declared for the more 
open yet sheltered Bay of Jibara. Both harbors are 
on the north coast of Cuba, and I have entered both, 
and found many points of resemblance to the de- 
scriptions of Columbus in each place. 

Several years later, on the southern coast of this 
same island, Columbus named one of the inlets he 
discovered Cienfuegos, or the Port of a Hundred 
Fires.* If he had ever circumnavigated Cuba, and 
had not held to the belief that this great island was a 
continent, he might well have called it the Isle of a 

* So named from an exclamation of a Spaniard at sight of the 
hundreds of lights ashore : " Mira los cienfuegos!'" 

13 



14 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Hundred Harbors, for its eighteen hundred miles of 
coast line is indented with quite that number of inlets 
and navigable bays. 

Moreover, if we were to make a voyage around 
the island, we should find that each important port 
had a well-defined profile of its own, and that the 
landfall of every harbor is as unmistakable as the 
Morro of Havana. With its total area of about forty- 
eight thousand square miles, hardly one fourth of 
which is cultivated, with its yet virgin forests of 
cedar, mahogany, and precious woods and its unex- 
ploited deposits of copper, iron, and gold, Cuba still 
has most beautiful and commodious harbors with- 
out trace of town or settlement on their shores, and 
yet capable of containing half the navies of the 
world. Lying open to the adjacent Bahamas, Haiti, 
and Jamaica, as well as to the keys of Florida, these 
unoccupied harbors have long been the resorts of buc- 
caneers and filibusters, who early learned their secret 
passes through the coral reefs. While the south coast 
has many good harbors, the north coast has more, and 
these latter have been more often the landing places 
of Cuban relief expeditions in recent years, owing to 
their proximity to Florida and its semicircle of reefs 
and islets, some of which are not more than one hun- 
dred miles distant. 

From Cape San Antonio, the western end of 
Cuba, the north coast runs easterly and southeasterly 
for perhaps a thousand miles of tortuous length. 
South of the cape a curious phenomenon, described 
by Humboldt at the beginning of this century, has 
been noted, in the shape of a spring of fresh water 



16 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

of vast volume bubbling up from the depths of the 
sea, at which vessels may replenish their casks. An- 
other peculiarity of this region, according to the same 



Off Cape San Antonio, Cuba. 

authority, is that the currents of the ocean run east 
one half the month, and west the other half. 

The conical and table-topped hills, such as Colum- 
bus noted as he approached Jibara, are frequent 
along this north coast, the first to be mentioned, going 
easterly from Cape San Antonio, being those back of 
Bahia Honda, a port of the Pinar del Rio region, 
where the insurgents for a long time held the country 
and obtained supplies. Fifteen miles farther east- 
ward is the harbor of Cabanas, to which the cele- 
brated Pan de Cabanas, or Sugar Loaf Hill, gives 
guidance to the mariner. Another of these table- 
topped hills is the Pan de Mariel, twelve miles far- 
ther, and the approach to the harbor of Havana is 
made known to the sailor by a remarkable isolated 
hill seven hundred feet high with two round hum- 
mocks. Forty-four miles easterly from Havana is 
the fine port of Matanzas, likewise noteworthy for its 
peculiar mesa, called the Pan de Matanzas. All 



COLUMBUS AND CUBA 17 

these harbors mentioned are well known and much 
frequented to-day; but easterly from the port of 
Sagua is a stretch of wild country extending about 
six hundred miles, containing little-visited lagoons, 
with obscure entrances through coral cays, some with 
large streams emptying into them, which have been 
the resorts of pirates and smugglers for centuries. 

At last, in our imaginary voyage, we reach the 
port of Nuevitas, outlet of the famed inland city of 
Puerto Principe, with which it is connected by rail. 
The bay is celebrated for its fish, which are fine and 
abundant, and for its sponge fisheries, which were 
carried on by the natives at the time Columbus came 
to Cuba. The large and sheltered harbor is reached 
through a river six miles long, the entrance to which 
is indicated by three small islands called the Bal- 
lenatos, or Little Whales. It was this sea river, 
or some other near, that Columbus described as so 
attractive, and on one bank of which he landed, at 
the same time taking possession of the island, calling 
it Juana; and the harbor Puerto del Principe, in 
honor of Prince John of Spain. 

" When in the Bahamas," says the historian Her- 
rera, " the Admiral would lose no time at the island 
Isabella or others, but resolved to go in quest of 
another, which the natives told him was very large, 
and called Cuba, pointing to the south; he believing 
it had been Sucipango [Cipango], by reason of the 
signs they gave of it and the extraordinary way of 
crying it up." So, as we see, the aboriginal name 
has been retained, and the island is Cuba, and not 
Juana, to-day. His arrival here was on the 28th of 



IH 



1*11 10 STolMKD WKST IN Dl MS 



October, L492, and, as was stated al the beginning 
oi Mil chapter, he was probably attracted by the 
lull:; bacli of Jibara, three oi which are called, from 
their shapes, the Sugar Loaf, the Saddle, and the 
Table, 




( ..ill, ,.ii ul . o:i:,l 



Good harbor he found so numerous that he was 
unable to decide which was the mo >st desirable, and 
the same holds true to-dayj for there are several on 

thlS |»«>|'l.i«»ll of l.lir ru:i;',|. of ( Sibil I'.rrurr ;i«';iin:,l :ill 

the winds that blow, and at least two large enough 
to floal the fleets of Europe. Many are concealed 
behind barrier reefs of coral, nearly all are fed by 
streams with wooded banks, and one, the Bay of Moa, 
Ik:, ;ii the entrance of fi river having fall of three 
hundred feet, and which leads into tangled, tropical 

wildciiK •;;:'.. Silent ; 1 1 1 < I IllmOSl n n \ i: 1 1 »'< I, these har 

bors, which ini'-lii. mii|)|m>i-i licet:', <>l coasting vessels 
upon their bosoms, :m<l ought i<> be fringed with 
human habitations, exisl ;ii the presenl time nearly 
in the state in which they were found by Columbus, 
in the year 1 L92. The Admiral was very enthusiastic 
in praise of them all, bul particularly of <li< v harbor 
of Raracoa, which he reached toward ili<» Insi oi No 
member, H was called by him Puerto Santo, and he 
writes in his journal respecting its river, which 
emerges from tropical forests and forms the harborj 



001 I V.) 

<mhfv..' and 

the multitude of palm 

form*, the big d most beautiful 

1 h; . and an infinity of and 

the bitti h plumage and 

dure of the dor tin of tueh mai 

irpaaief all other* in eharmf and 

ight in k i<di 

ople that, mueh 

-ount of it to ymir Maj- 

nand a:. ' 

the trhole truth, nor my pen de#eribe it; and 

f h* rhelmed at the aighi leh 

riat J h; 
Thi just four 

hundred after Ihe vi-it of Oolumbun, and, Jiko 

him, ha* felt the madeipiai 
,ro of it* charm l'< ■■ 

Id, afford od a more delightful 

eeu from the nea, or from 
high liiU* v behind it. ful 

n> adorn all t: 
ritain fv 
durou% that ne* / f ,al 

and pr; 
:: I: - - - • • • • r Up 

• I ; i ' • I ■■■,■■ ■ •■ - - 

of the - ra- 



of o bile the 



20 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



though the trees were large their hearts were soft 
and spongy, and easily hollowed out." 

This port was so praised by Columbus that here, 
in 1512, was founded the first city in Cuba, by Diego 
Velasquez, who had come over from Hispaniola and 
landed first on the southern coast. A Cuban historian 
says: " It is situated near the eastern extremity of the 
island, the surroundings presenting an extensive plain 
gradually sloping from the mountains down to the 
shore, intersected by valleys and richly wooded, from 
which streams fall into the sea, affording, with all the 




Baracoa and Yunque Mountain. 



beauties of tropical vegetation, a picture of enchant- 
ment." But the most notable feature of the environ- 
ment of Baracoa has not been mentioned yet — the 
famous and picturesque Yunque (the Anvil), a 
beautiful mesa with level top, eighteen hundred feet 
in height, and visible forty miles at sea. This 
grand landmark guided Columbus to the port, and 
he particularly dwells upon it in his journal as 
an impressive natural object. From time immemo- 
rial it has been a sacred mountain to the natives, and 
their traditions say that in the morning, when the 



COLUMBUS AND CUBA 21 

first rays of the sun illumine the eastern cliffs, the 
face and figure of their great cazique, who once dwelt 
on the summit plain of Yunque, can be seen traced 
upon the perpendicular walls. 

It was either at Baracoa, or from some bay like 
that of Moa, that Columbus sent that famous embassy 
to the Great Khan, believing that he had at last 
arrived at the borders of the kingdom of Cathay or 
Cipango, his mind being filled with the stories related 
by that eminent Venetian traveler, Marco Polo. As 
my readers are probably acquainted with the story, 
and as my object is merely to localize the events of 
West Indian history, rather than to detail them, we 
will not narrate them at length. However, let us 
recall that Columbus sent two Spaniards on this mis- 
sion to the mythical Grand Khan, who were accom- 
panied by an Indian of San Salvador and another 
of Cuba. One of the Spaniards was a Jew. who spoke 
not only Castilian, but Hebrew and Chaldaic, some 
say Arabic. u Columbus gave them things to barter, 
and set them six days to return in. with instructions 
how to speak in the name of their Catholic Majes- 
ties." And they were to travel inland until they 
found the golden province of the island, which the 
natives called Cuha-naean, where they were to 
speak with the king, as already mentioned. They 
traveled twenty-two leagues, through forests vast and 
deep, crossing rivers and climbing mountains, and at 
last came to the much-vaunted capital city, which 
proved, alas! to be neither grand nor beautiful, but 
merely a straggling village of thatched huts. The 
people received them as if. indeed, they were heaven- 




22 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

descended, placed before them all they had in the 
way of eatables, such as maize and yucca bread, and 
caused them to sit down " on seats made of one solid 
piece of wood, in the shape of a beast with very 
short legs and the tail held up, the head before, with 
eyes and ears of gold." These " seats," I may re- 
mark in passing, have been found — or some like them 

— in the Bahamas, 
and in Haiti, some 
made of wood, 
as here described, 
and others of stone, 
proving the ac- 
count by Columbus 

The seat in the shape of a beast. , 

to be correct. 

From the historian we learn that at night " each 
Indian carried a firebrand in his hand, to light fire, 
and perfumed themselves with some herbs; and the 
fire was easily kindled, because they had a sort of 
wood which, if they worked one piece against an- 
other, as if they had been boring a hole, it took 
fire." This method of making a fire, as every Ameri- 
can knows, was practiced by all the aborigines of the 
New World at the time of their discovery by the 
white people. " They also saw a multitude of several 
sorts of trees, such as they had not seen on the sea- 
coast, and a great variety of birds, such as partridges 
[ground doves] and nightingales [mocking birds]. 
But they met with no four-footed creatures, except 
the little cur dogs that do not bark." 

These " little cur dogs that do not bark " may 
have been raccoons, which the Indians had tamed, 



COLUMBUS AXD CUBA 23 

or they may have been, as some writers think, an 
animal which is now extinct. 

There are but four mammals known to belong to 
Cuba: two species of a small animal called the utia, 
another known as the ahniqui, and the javalli, or 
native wild hog. This last-named was also seen by 
the first arrivals, for Herrera says : " In one of the 
islands they killed with their swords a beast that was 
like a wild boar." This much for the animals the 
first Spaniards saw on land. 

The houses of the Indians, they said, " were like 
tents, with an open portal before them, covered with 
leaves of trees [palm thatch], well fitted for the rain 
and weather, with vents for the smoke and ridges 
at the top. handsomely made. And within them 
there was no other household stuff, or ornament, 
than what the Indians carried aboard the ship- to 
barter: but their beds were a net made fast to two 
posts, and which are called hamacas" The first 
Indians seen in Cuba fled from their huts, leaving 
behind them crude nets and fishing tackle, and they 
carried their drinking water in gourds or calabashes. 

To the great disappointment of Columbus, his em- 
bassy returned without any tidings of a Great Khan 
or any other potentate, and with only the meager 
gatherings of their journey. They reported that the 
Indians were kind and polite enough to have been 
inmates of courts, but that there were not any courts 
or royal assemblages — neither, for that matter, any 
royalty to assemble — for the only personage having 
authority was called a cacique, and he went about 
clad like the rest — that is. solely in " nature's garb." 



24 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Neither in Cuba nor in the Bahamas did the 
Spaniards find more than a mere trace of gold; now 
and then an Indian nose ornament of that precious 
metal which Columbus so ardently desired to se- 
cure. But, without at the time being- aware of 
its value, the Spaniards found a treasure far more 
precious than gold: the since famous Indian corn, 
or maize, the golden grains of which, so far as we 
can ascertain, were first gathered in Cuba. "They 
[the Indians | had much ground sowed with their 
roots \ manioc] and that sort of corn called mayz, 
well tasted, either boyPd or ground into flour." 
It will be well to remember that the present Latin 
name of this corn was derived directly from the In- 
dian: one of the many words for which we are in- 
debted to the American aborigines. 

The ambassadors also saw vast quantities of fine- 
spun cotton— a hutful, in fact — from which the In- 
dians wove their girdles and hammocks. These 
natural gifts were not apreciated as they should have 
been, for the shortsighted Spaniards were clamorous 
only for gold; still they preserved some specimens 
of the country's products, which were later exhibited 
before the Spanish court, after Columbus had per- 
formed his triumphal journey across Spain from 
Palos to Barcelona. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SEARCH FOB CTPA3TGO 

" Being asked about gold and pearls, the natives 
of Cuba said there was an abundance at Bohio. point- 
ing to the eastward. . . . By this name of Bohio 
[which was the island later called Hispaniola] it 
seemed the Indians would signify it was a land full 
of bohios — that is. cottages [or huts]." * 

The final departure of Columbus from Cuba was 
practically taken from the port of Baracoa. twenty- 
two miles distant from which, with a few small har- 
bors intervening, is Cape May si. the extreme eastern 
tip of the island. At the present time the tower of 
the Faro Concha, or shell lighthouse, is one of the 
notable landmarks of Cuba, with its light one hun- 
dred and twenty-eight feet above the sea. and visible 
seventeen miles in clear weather. From this point, 
as in the days of Columbus, when it was doubled by 
him in 1492. all mariners take their departure 
through the Windward Passage to southwestern Haiti. 
Jamaica, and the Isthmus of Panama. It still re- 
tains, as we may note, its aboriginal name: and in 
fact, though the Indians of Cuba were long since 

* In the Indian langnasre : Bo. great : lio, country — the 
Country. 



26 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



exterminated by the cruel Spaniards, they have left 
behind them ineffaceable evidences of their former 
existence in this beautiful island. 

Other relics of these gentle people have been 
found in their implements of agriculture and the 
chase, such as stone hatchets, arrow heads, hoes, fish- 
ing " sinkers," and stone seats. Not many years ago 
a most valuable " find " was made of some Indian 
skulls, in a great cave not far from Cape Maysi, 
which had lain so long there, in the bottom of the 
cavern, that they were entirely covered, as if petri- 
fied, with a deposit of stone, formed by water which 
held lime in solution dropping from the roof. I 

shall in a future 
chapter allude to 
the fate of these 
innocent natives, 
who were, through 
no fault of their 
own, made the 
victims of Spanish 
hate and cruelty. 
Instead of following directly after Columbus, as 
he stretched across the Windward Passage in quest 
of Boliio, which was also called by the natives Babe- 
que, let us complete our investigations into his con- 
nection with the island of Cuba. Anticipating by 
nearly eighteen months the actual sequence of events, 
we shall find that he returned to this coast in April, 
1494, while the town of Isabella was being built and 
put in order. Taking up the thread of exploration 
at Cape Maysi, which he had called " Alpha and 




Seat carved of stone (Bahamas). 



THE SEARCH FOR CIPANGO 27 

Omega/ 7 Columbus sailed along the southern coast 
of Cuba westerly until he came to the Bay of Guan- 
tanamo, which he called Puerto Grande, and with 
the beauty of which he was impressed ; for " the 
entrance was narrow and winding, though deep; the 
harbor expanded within like a beautiful lake, in the 
bosom of a wild and mountainous country covered 
with trees, some of them in blossom, others bear- 
ing fruit." Landing here, the Spaniards found 
traces of Indians, who had fled at their approach, 
but who left a plentiful supply of fish, utias, and 
iguanas roasting before open fires, and spread out 
as if for a banquet, and which the half-famished 
sailors greedily devoured. Guantanamo (pronounced 
guan-tahn'-ah-mo) was the scene of another invasion, 
four hundred and four years later, when the Ameri- 
can marines engaged in the war with Spain landed 
here — the first of our armed men to " take soil " in 
this island. Theirs was the first blood shed in the 
conflict with the Spanish guerrillas in this war, and 
all Americans will hereafter regard this beautiful 
bay with renewed interest, since its waters were red- 
dened by the blood of heroes fighting in the cause 
of Cuban liberty. 

Coasting still westerly, Columbus espied and en- 
tered the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, its tortuous 
channel guarded by stupendous cliffs, since crowned 
by picturesque Morro Castle. As we shall devote 
a future chapter to this region when we narrate the 
story of Cuban settlement and conquest, we will not 
tarry now, but continue on after the Admiral, whose 
fortunes we are for the moment following. He pur- 
4 



28 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

sued his course along the steep-to shore, past the 
beaches where, in 1898, the flower of Spain's navy 
was crushed and sunk by the dash and gallantry of 
American sailors. It may not be inappropriate to 
pause a moment and note one more strange coin- 
cidence connected with the sinking of Cervera's fleet, 
in addition to the one we mentioned in the first 
chapter. Among the battle ships that so bravely 
came out to meet their fate on that bright morning, 
the 3d of July, 1898, was one named the Cristobal 
Colon, anglice Christopher Columbus. Possessing 
superior speed to the others, and making a longer 
flight than its companion war ships, it was the last 
to be destroyed, and was driven ashore and sunk 
within sight of the very point whence Columbus took 
his departure from the coast of Cuba for the more 
southern island of Jamaica! 

This departure was on the 3d of May, 1494. After 
discovering and coasting the northern shore of Ja- 
maica, and satisfying himself that it was not the 
auriferous Babeque, he returned once more to the 
Cuban coast, making land at the high point which he 
called Cabo de la Cruz, a name it bears to-day. In- 
land rose to the sky glorious and cloud-wreathed Tur- 
quino, a mountain of greater altitude than any other 
in the Antilles ; but he was not to be lured backward, 
and continued still to the west. It was not long be- 
fore the Spanish caravels were entangled in that laby- 
rinth of isles, islets, and reefs, so beautiful to observe 
as they lay fresh and verdurous upon the glassy 
waters, but so perplexing to a navigator, to which 
Columbus gave the name of Gardens of the Queen 



THE SEARCH FOR CIPANGO 29 

(las J airlines de la Reina). The shores of the 
largest islands and of the mainland were popu- 
lous with the same innocent Indians he had seen on 
the north coast and in the Bahamas, and they were 
bountifully supplied with fish, tortoises, " dumb 
dogs," parrots, and scarlet flamingoes. Here the 
Spaniards observed that curious mode of " fishing 
with a fish," pursued by the Indians with the remora : 
" Tying a line of great length to the tail of this fish, 
the Indians permitted it to swim at large until it 
perceived its prey, when, darting down swiftly, it 
attached itself by its sucking disks (on the top of its 
head) to the throat of a fish, or to the underside of 
a tortoise; nor did it relinquish its prey until both 
were drawn up by the fishermen and taken out of 
the water. In this way the Spaniards witnessed the 
taking of a tortoise of immense size, and Fernando 
Columbus affirms that he himself saw a shark caught 
in the same manner on the coast of Yeragua." 

More open navigation succeeded to the laby- 
rinthine archipelago, and, a high mountain being 
sighted, Columbus landed again on the main island, 
probably somewhere near the port of the present city 
of Trinidad, where, from the assembled Indians, he 
received such information as confirmed him in the 
belief that he was indeed on the coast of Asia. Borne 
by spicy breezes westward, within sight of a shore 
then populous with Indians, but now practically de- 
serted, the Spaniards passed the inlet making toward 
the present city of Cienfuegos, and then to their 
farthest point in this direction, a little beyond the Bay 
of Batabano. Says the great Humboldt, who coasted 



30 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



this same shore in 1801: "These regions possess a 
charm that is wanting in the greater part of the ~New 
World, for they recall to the mind memories which 
cluster around the greatest names of the Spanish 
monarchy — Columbus and Hernan Cortes. It was 
on the southern coast of the island of Cuba, between 
the Bay of Jagua and the Isle of Pines, that Colum- 
bus, during his second voyage, beheld with admira- 




Indians and canoe. (From an old print.) 

tion ' that mysterious king who communicated with 
his subjects by signs only, and that group of men 
wearing long white gOAvns, like begging friars, while 
all the rest of the people were naked.' ' Usually 
accurate, Humboldt in this instance is slightly at 
fault, for it was not Columbus, but one of his fright- 
ened archers, who had penetrated the forest in ad- 



THE SEARCH FOR CIPANGO 31 

vance of his comrades, and who related this fanciful 
tale to his credulous commander. But Columbus 
believed it ; though doubtless it was false, as no others 
like these men were ever seen afterward. 

"When at a point beyond Batabano, which Colum- 
bus called Serafin, he was less than twenty miles dis- 
tant from the north coast of the island, and if he 
could but have looked across, the error would have 
been dispelled in which all the rest of his life he 
believed: that Cuba was a continent, and probably 
Asia, " beyond the boundaries of the Old World as 
laid down by Ptolemy." But he saw a mountain to 
the southward, and, instead of continuing on, westerly 
and northerly, he sailed for what is now known as 
the Isle of Pines, and which he named Evangelista. 
It was reserved for Ocampo, in 1508, to first circum- 
navigate Cuba, and obtain the credit for the informa- 
tion that it was indubitably an island. Thus, in igno- 
rance that he had come so near to solving one of the 
greatest and most perplexing problems of his life, 
Columbus turned his back on Cuba, and retraced his 
course, easterly at first, then southerly, to Jamaica 
again. In brief, he coasted the southern shores of 
the latter island, thence made over to the south coast 
of Haiti, for the first time bringing these regions to 
view, and, after sailing completely around the last- 
named island, arrived at Isabella early in Septem- 
ber, 1194, after nearly five months' absence, worn 
out with bodily fatigues and mental suffering. 

Once more Columbus was destined to look upon 
the southern coast of Cuba, and this was near the end 
of his last and most disastrous voyage, in the year 



32 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

1503. He made, as we know, four voyages to Amer- 
ica: in the first discovering the Bahamas, Cuba, and 
the north coast of Haiti, or Hispaniola; in the sec- 
ond some of the Caribbees, the Virgin Islands, Puerto 
Rico, and Jamaica; in the third striking farther to 
the south, discovering the island of Trinidad and 
the north coast of South America at Paria; in the 
fourth, and last, making a wider sweep and reaching 
the east coast of Honduras. And it was on this last 
despairing venture of his, when he was already in- 
firm from the many vicissitudes of his seafaring life, 
that he came, in a roundabout way, to the scene of 
his explorations in 1494. 

It was on the 30th of May, 1503, that, in en- 
deavoring to make Hispaniola from the coast of 
Veragua, the shattered caravels of Columbus were 
driven by a storm within sight of the Queen's Gar- 
dens. His vessels had been bored full of holes by the 
teredo, and, to add to his apprehension, a terrible 
tempest drove them at its mercy among the cays. 
The crews were worn out with watching and bailing, 
and both vessels of the small fleet were shattered by 
coming into collision. In this condition they arrived 
at the province of Macaca, near Cabo de la Cruz, 
where, nine years before, Columbus had been so 
well treated by the Indians. They were still kind 
and hospitable, and furnished the suffering mariners 
with a store of cassava bread, being as yet free and 
in possession of all the bounties of Nature. Taking 
aboard the bread, together with wood and water, the 
caravels proceeded, in a sinking condition, to Jamaica, 
where they w T ere run ashore, and where Columbus 



THE SEARCH FOR CIPANGO 33 

and his men remained a year, before assistance came 
to them from Hispaniola. This episode forms the 
subject of another story, and will be narrated in due 
course; yet we can not but pause to reflect upon the 
terrible changes that had already been wrought in 
the life of our hero, whom we saw at the outset of 
his Cuban voyagings buoyant and full of hope, 
thrilled with the thought that he was soon to be in 
converse with kings and potentates; now broken and 
depressed, victim of royal distrust and official vil- 
lainies, menaced by the Indians of Jamaica, a pris- 
oner on his shipwrecked hulk upon the strand. 

One of the most delightful of my recollections 
is that of a scene I once viewed on the north coast 
of Haiti. I was then on board ship, passing through 
the " canal," or narrow passage, between Haiti and 
the smaller island of Tortuga. The water was as 
smooth as glass, and between Tortuga and the main 
island numerous boats and canoes were passing, each 
little craft bearing a black cultivator of the soil to or 
from his garden, and laden with fruits and vege- 
tables, or else containing a sable fisherman with the 
primitive implements of his humble calling. On the 
one hand lay the gray crags of Tortuga, the Turtle 
Island, so named by Columbus, and years after he 
had discovered it the haunt of bloodthirsty buccaneers; 
on the other the hill-tossed island of Haiti, its moun- 
tains blue-tipped with distant haze, while near at 
hand lay smiling valleys, abloom with many a flower. 
It was a scene of peace and plenty, of picturesque 
contentment : such, according to my fancy, as greeted 



34 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



the eyes of the Admiral after he had crossed the 
Windward Passage, in December, 1492, and drew 

* "TOT 




near this same island of Haiti, or Hispaniola. He 
had been told by the natives of Cuba that Bohio, or 



THE SEARCH FOR CIPAXGO 35 

Babeque, tlie Land of Gold, lay east and southward; 
and there is every reason for believing that Haiti 
was the land they meant. The name by which it 
is at present known is aboriginal, Ai-ti, the High- 
land, one portion of which was also called by the 
natives Quisqueya, or Mother of the Earth, and is 
now known as Santo Domingo. 

The first port in Bohio, or Babeqne. that Colum- 
bus entered he called San Xicolas. and he found it 
safe, capacious, and deep, encompassed with thick 
woods, the land hilly: a pleasant river ran into the 
harbor, and on the shore there were many canoes as 
large as a brigantine of twenty-five oars. Pish were 
abundant in the bay and birds of sweetest song dis- 
ported in the trees on shore, while the air was balmy 
and the weather delightful. He did not make a long 
stay in this noble harbor, but sent the little Xina, 
smallest caravel of the fleet, ahead to make sound- 
ings, slowly following in the flagship Santa Maria. 
Some time before leaving the coast of Cuba Cap- 
tain Pinzon, in the Pinta. had sailed ahead of the 
others, and left Columbus with only the two ves- 
sels we have named. This matter gave Columbus 
great concern, for a storm was brewing when he 
arrived in the channel, the dangers of which he 
escaped by seeking a " lee " under the cliffs of pic- 
turesque Tortuga. 

From this coign of vantage he gazed long and 
earnestly upon the beautiful island across the narrow 
strip of water, and pondered upon a name for it 
that should fittingly imply its great advantages. To 
the first island he landed on in the Bahamas he 



30 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



had given the name of San Salvador, " in honor of 
God " ; to the second La Concepcion, " with respect 
to the Mother of God " ; to the third Femandina, in 
honor of King Ferdinand; to the fourth Isabella, 
after the Queen; to the fifth Juana, after the Prin- 
cess, their daughter; and to the sixth, and last, La 
Espanola, or the Spanish Island (since corrupted to 
Ilispaniola), "though some thought it should have 
been called Castellana, after Castile." Though the 
names bestowed by Columbus were euphonious, jet 
most of them have been supplanted by others, and in 
two or three instances the Indian appellations have 
been restored. 



those f omad in iLe Baltawtaf and Cobs- La-rmg the 

: - • ■ .• ■ . ; ^ - - : - 

- 
'—;.- :-;;■:- ;-:.-." Lirje 7 : -~- - ::: r^:"/- -■: 
"lei: :e:- :_- > -—--/_ ; ":-.-- i .;..'.' za:~.a a'acZ^ : . 

rl- '. — r'. V'hl --;- "• >-i ;; — : ^ r V: L7_* : A . >A- 

— -; .' - r- : _:-■_- £e1.- r —-i": :_r_: :_LL_ze li<: 
>i aaa : . ~a-a :■--. -.-._,':_ ■--:- -::jZ_:: v. v:' — : 

saeh a$ ibe unarm, or pimeajipie 

V - - ■ 

rr. - :—. i.J_'. ""-J- .ll AA AAA' A.'.- ^ - - '-'-'- '-'- 

AcA a./-_ >z. _ _ :-.'-- -~aa- a'a- : . :■ ". r a. :.:- 

eosBpasMid to like urosie of a drum made from a !:•!- 
Ive: - - :-:~ere: -.-- -y :_ ~-e~ Lie: ".: aa . , r 

■1: :^1 e ' - --.-;_ ~r: I- :.-_ \:~ :-:': ; :'::~ 

faenoEL TLej Lad eanoes dn£ nud 

: / 

--:-: .r_ -li: --.:-.^ :z a \^aa. :r_ -ile: - - --;i~ 



38 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

age/' and knew nothing of iron or copper). They 
could not but be attracted by gold, which they found 
in glittering particles in the streams, and so ductile 
that they easily wrought it into rude ornaments; but 
they seem to have known no use for any other metal. 
They could not understand the inordinate greed for 
gold possessed by Columbus and his men, for they 
had not the vice of covetousness, and when such gold 
as they had was asked of them they gave it freely. 

The first woman captured at San Nicolas had a 
nose plate of gold, and this kind of ornament was 
worn more than any other, except, perhaps, rude 
anklets and bracelets. This female captive was very 
much alarmed, as the Spaniards had only caught her 
after a long chase through the forest, and was brought, 
struggling and shrieking, aboard the flagship, where 
she cowered in apprehension. To allay her fears, 
" the Admiral gave her hawk bells [which were 
small and round, something like old-fashioned sleigh- 
bells] and strings of glass beads, then caused a shirt 
to be put on her, and so sent her away, with three of 
the Indians he had brought with him [from Cuba] 
and three Spaniards, to bear her company to her habi- 
tation." 

She was then the proudest and vainest woman in 
Haiti, for when she met her red-skinned sisters, who 
had no beads nor jingling hawk bells, and in fact not 
even clothing on, she displayed her treasures with 
all the condescension of a queen. After that there 
was no lack of Indians on the shores to see the great 
ships go by, or of red men in canoes who flocked 
about them, desiring to exchange gold for paltry 



AN INDIAN PAEADISE 39 

baubles like beads and bells. The old historians tell 
us that they came about, paddling, or swimming, with 
one hand, and holding up nuggets of gold, saying, in 
their guttural voices, " chug, chug/ 7 like so many 
frogs in a pond, by which they meant that they 
wished to exchange their gold for hawk bells. One 
Indian brought a piece of gold weighing several 
ounces, which he gave a Spaniard for one of these 
small bells, and then leaped overboard and swam 
ashore, where he ran as fast as he could, seeming to 
fear that the Spaniard might feel 
that he had been cheated and wish 
to get the bell back again! This 
bartering, however, mostly took 
place a few days after the first land- 
ing in Haiti, which was on the 6th 
of December, 1492. As the Span- 
iards pursued their way eastward, 
they passed such beautiful bays and 
harbors, noble headlands, and glori- 
ous valleys through 
which meandered spark- 
ling streams, that their 
senses were ravished, Pestle of stone, with carved face. 

even their brutal na- 
tures softened. One of these fine harbors is now 
known as Port de Paix, or the Port of Peace ; another, 
which Columbus called Yal de Paraiso, or the Yale of 
Paradise, was probably the deep Bay of Acul, of 
which he wrote : " I have now been at sea twenty- 
three years, with scarcely any intermission, and have 
seen the East and the West; but in all those parts I 




40 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

have never witnessed so much of perfection in harbors 
as in this." 

" Between Hispaniola and Tortnga they met an 
Indian in a canoe, and admired that, being in a rough 
sea, it had not swallowed him up. The Admiral in- 
quiring for Cipango, he thought he had meant Cibao, 
and pointed where it lay, that being the place where 
most gold was found in that island." It was probably 
in the Bay of Acul that " the Admiral was informed 
that the lord of the territory, whom they called the 
cacique, was coming with about two hundred men 
to see the ships; and though he was young they car- 
ried him in a bier on their shoulders, and he had a 
tutor and counselors. When he came aboard it was 
observed with admiration how great respect they 
paid him, and how gravely he behaved himself. . . . 
The next day, though the wind was contrary and 
blew hard, the sea did not swell, by reason of the 
shelter the island of Tortnga affords that coast. . . . 
The cacique gave the Admiral a gold girdle and 
some plates of gold, and the men of the crews traded 
with the natives for golden grains. . . . The people 
carried meat, calabashes with water in them, and good 
bread made of maize, or Indian corn. On Saturday, 
the 2 2d of December, the great cacique of the coun- 
try, who was in reality a king, sent the Admiral a 
girdle he wore and a mask with ears, tongue, and nose 
of beaten gold. The girdle was adorned with small 
fish bones like seed pearls, curiously wrought, four 
fingers broad. . . . The Indians brought articles of 
cotton and grains of gold for barter, and above one 
hundred and twenty canoes came to the ships with 



AN INDIAN PARADISE 41 

provisions, and earthenware pitchers handsomely 
made and painted, full of fresh water. They also 
gave their sort of spice, which they called axi [or aje, 
pronounced ah'-hi], and which they put into dishes 
of water and drank it up, to show it was good." 

The name of the great cacique, or king, was 
Guacanagari (pronounced gwa-can-ahg'ar-i), and as 
he felt it beneath his dignity to leave his capital, 
even to welcome such distinguished strangers, he sent 
a most pressing invitation for Columbus to visit him 
without delay. The latter was now pretty well con- 
vinced that he had at last arrived at or near the 
region described by Marco Polo as Cipango, as he then 
wrote in his journal. Indeed, had he not received 
most substantial evidence already that he was now 
near the Land of Gold? It was easy to find a resem- 
blance between the two words: Cipango, of the Far 
East, and Cibao (pronounced see-bah'-o), the gold- 
producing region of Haiti, or Santo Domingo. Xo 
wonder that the imagination of Columbus was now 
all aflame, and that he lost no time in accepting the 
royal invitation. 

" On Monday, the 24th of December, the Ad- 
miral left this harbor [of Acul] to visit Guacanagari, 
being only four or five leagues [twelve to fifteen 
miles] distant. Seeing the sea calm he went to bed, 
for he had not slept for two days and a night." 

This is the first recorded instance of neglect on 
the part of Columbus during the voyage thus far, 
and it may be ascribed to the peaceful nature of the 
scenes he had been among the past two weeks and 
more, the serenity of the air, the gentle people, and 



42 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



the deceitful calms of the sea channel. At all events, 
he went to sleep in his cabin, while the crew also, 
lulled by the same influences, and relieved of the 
master's watchful eye, allowed their weariness to 
overcome them. For more than four months, or since 




Monsters of the air and deep. (From an old engraving.) 

leaving the port of Palos, they had been constantly 
on the watch. In crossing the Atlantic's broad ex- 
panse they feared the great ingulfing seas, and 
toward the end of the ocean voyage the trade winds, 
always blowing from one direction — from the east — 
seemed to augur the impossibility of their return to 
Spain. " For," they reasoned, " if we get to the bot- 
tom of this watery mountain, with the wind blowing 
against us (the earth being round, according to Co- 



AN INDIAN PARADISE 43 

lumbus), how shall we ever climb it again on the 
homeward voyage ? " Then, again, they had feared 
the terrible sea serpents and the mermaids, the sub- 
marine monsters, and the dragons on shores new to 
them; for they were coasting an altogether unknown 
land, which was, in their imaginations, filled with 
evil things of every sort. 

But now the seas were calm, and the adjacent 
shores were shining with the beauty of a terrestrial 
paradise. Now the crews threw away their fears; 
they were certain that the end of their long and 
dangerous voyaging was nearly reached, for wherever 
the hitherto elusive gold should be found, there Co- 
lumbus had promised to stop and rest. 

Now that the golden country was almost within 
sight, the fears of these superstitious mariners were 
allayed, and they gave themselves over to a sense 
of security which the condition of seas and currents 
by no means warranted. Never, in fact, had they 
needed more to keep awake and a good watch out 
ahead, for that very night, after leaving Acul, as the 
flagship and the caravel drifted over the glassy sea 
within sight of land, the helm of the former in sole 
charge of a boy, the evil spirits of the deep combined 
to bring them disaster. The winds off shore were 
but balmy zephyrs, laden with sweet odors of the 
tropic woods, and there was no intimation of the fate 
in store for these weary mariners from Spain. But 
while they were wrapped in slumber the treacherous 
sea currents, for which this coast is noted now, forced 
the Santa Maria upon a coral reef covered with 
sand, and there she stuck, to the terror of the hap- 
5 



44 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

less boy in charge of the helm, and of the suddenly 
awakened crew. This is the only mention at all of a 
boy being with Columbus on this voyage, and I am 
sorry to say it is the last; but, at all events, if the 
first disaster to a European ship in the New World 
came about through the negligence of a boy, it was 
while he was trying bravely to do a man's work; and 
my sympathies have always gone out to him. 

Well, of course Columbus — who, being a sailor, 
was a light sleeper — at once darted out of his cabin 
and berated the mariners ; he ordered them to lighten 
the ship by throwing overboard everything on deck, 
and as this did not have effect, to cut away the masts. 
Finally a boat's crew was sent out to carry an anchor 
to windward, and the little Mha (" Mna " meaning 
a girl, you know) came to the rescue of the great 
mother ship and hovered about anxiously till morn- 
ing. She lay by till daylight, rendering all the assist- 
ance possible, but when dawn appeared it was seen 
that the Santa Maria would soon fall to pieces and 
prove a total wreck. The third caravel of this his- 
toric squadron, the Pinta, you will remember, had 
left the others at the eastern end of Cuba and gone 
off, no one knew whither, on a cruise by herself; so 
into the smallest vessel of the fleet it would now be 
necessary to crowd the crews of both the flagship and 
the little caravel. 

But succor came from a source which, to say the 
least, seemed to Columbus rather dubious, though 
he had at the outset dispatched a messenger for re- 
lief. The man who so gallantly came to the rescue 
in this time of direst need was none other than 



AN INDIAN PARADISE 



45 



Cacique Guacanagari; and I hope this fact will be re- 
membered, for it will serve to bring into strong relief, 
a little later on, the black ingratitude of these same 
Spaniards. AVhen the flagship struck on the reef 
she was less than six miles from Guarico (gwa'-ri-co), 
the seat of King Guacanagari's court, and which I 
have ascertained to be near and on the shore of the 
bay at present called Cape Haitien. Appealed to by 
the messenger of Co- 
lumbus, the cacique 
promptly sent out a 
fleet of canoes, and so 
zealous and industri- 
ous were his Indian 
subjects that every 
article on the ship was 
soon carried ashore, 
the wreck dismantled 
and the wreckage also 
sent to Guarico. These 
details have been pre- 
served through the accounts given by Columbus and 
by local traditions, and can be relied upon as accurate. 
And thus it came about that, perforce, Columbus, as 
the guest of an Indian king, celebrated the first 
Christmas ever observed in the Xew World. It was 
on Monday evening that he set out to visit the cacique, 
and shortly after midnight that the ship ran aground. 
Christmas fell on a Tuesday the year in which Amer- 
ica was discovered by Columbus; the morn had dawned 
and the day was well begun — probably it was by that 
time midday — and the wreckage of the Santa Maria 




The Santa Maria. 



46 TIIE STORIED WEST INDIES 

was ashore at Guarico, before the Admiral could bring 
himself to leave his ill-fated craft. Then he was 
carried in a en hoc to the Indian village, where the 
cacique received him with deepest sympathy, even 
shedding tears, it is said, over his mishaps, and placed 
all he had at his disposal. 

It was here, at Guarico, that the bartering of 
trinkets for gold was carried on with such profit to 
the Spaniards; for, 1 hough the Indians had all their 
wreckage and merchandise in their possession and 
care, every article of which was incomparably pre- 
cious in their estimation, yet they scorned to appro- 
priate a single thing. Their honesty was thus well 
proved, and it is no matter of wonder that Columbus 
declared them and their king to be pre-eminent in 
virtue, and the finest people he had ever met. 

Not quite content with giving them shelter and 
succor, King Guacanagari ordered a great feast pre- 
pared, after the Nina had been taken to an anchor- 
age abreast the town, at which there were served a 
great variety of native fruits, vegetables, fish, and 
game. After this banquet, at which the visitors were 
served by Indian maidens, modest and desirous to 
please, the cacique cleansed his hands by rubbing 
them with fragrant herbs, after the manner of King 
Montezuma of Mexico, who was taken prisoner by 
Ilernan Cortes twenty-four years later. Tie wore, 
it is stated, a golden coronet, which he gave to Colum- 
bus when the latter admired it, his example being 
followed by two of his subchiefs from the hills, who 
were likewise adorned. They did not seem to care 
for clothing, but when presented by the Admiral with 






AM IUDIAM PARADISE 47 

a shirt and a pair of gloves King Guacanagari felt 
such a thrill of pride er probably ran through 

his frame before. When Columbus ordered a Moor- 
ish bowman to exhibit his skill, and a lombard to 
be fired, his astonishme./ ap jat, and his thou- 

sand attendants fell to the ground filled with a fear 
that nearly stunned them, for they had never before 
witnessed such execution nor heard such terrible 
sour. hen the lightning fiashed and 

thunder rolled among the hills. 



CHAPTEE V 

FRUITS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 

Christmas Day, 1492, at its dawning, had seen 
the Spaniards at the mercy of the wind and waves, 
at noon the honored guests of Cacique Guacanagari, 
at night refreshed and comforted. 

New Year's Day, 1493, found these same men 
recovered, in a measure, from their great disaster, 
and ready for departure. Finding that the one small 
caravel remaining could not carry all his crew back 
to Spain, and being importuned by many of his men 
for permission to stay in this land of gold and 
charms innumerable, Columbus resolved to build here 
a fort and leave a garrison, to hold the place and seek 
for gold, while he should continue on the homeward 
voyage. And so expeditious were these eager Span- 
iards — some to free themselves from his restraint, 
and the rest to get away — that scarce a week sufficed 
for the construction of the fort out of the wreckage 
of the Santa Maria. From the planks and timbers 
of the flagship a small but strong structure was built, 
with the aid of the natives, having a deep vault be- 
neath and surrounded by a ditch. It was called 
La Navidad, or The Nativity, in honor and remem- 
brance of the day on which the wreck occurred, and 
placed in charge of Captain Arana, a relative of 
48 



FRUITS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 49 

the deceased wife of Columbus, with a garrison of 
forty men. This fort was destroyed and the gar- 
rison massacred before the return of Columbus on 
his second voyage to America; but its site, though 
for centuries forgotten, has at last been approxi- 
mately determined. The Admiral, as has been 
already pointed out, kept a daily record of his adven- 
tures, which was accurate to a fault. After leaving 
Cuba, the points he visited and where any important 
events took place are plainly indicated. Thus in 1892, 
just four centuries after he had been here, I myself 
was enabled to identify the spot called La Navidad; 
and, further, to collect some relics of the wreck and 
fort. It may seem almost incredible, perhaps, that 
one should be able to recover anything of importance 
from a wreck that took place more than four hun- 
dred years ago; but it was my good fortune to find 
what, beyond any reasonable doubt, was an anchor 
from the Santa Maria, which had been sent ashore 
with other wreckage and left at Guarico. We have 
it on the authority of Columbus himself, that every- 
thing portable on the ship was taken off by the 
friendly Indians and landed at the Indian village, 
even to the last nail and bolt of the stranded vessel. 
This ancient anchor, then, was found by me, identi- 
fied, and later sent to the Columbian Exposition, 
where, in the " monastery of La Rabida," it was 
placed on exhibition — one of the most precious relics 
of the many contained in that interesting reproduc- 
tion of the famous structure. 

I allude to this discovery merely to link the 
remote past with the present, and to make as vivid 




A portrait of Columbus. 



FRUITS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 51 

as possible the events of the time we are investigat- 
ing. I wish it were possible for me to declare that 
I had found some living descendant of those gentle, 
generous people who so royally entertained the per- 
fidious Spaniards; but to-day, alas! not one survives. 
Where those guileless Indians danced and sang, 
spread rural feasts, and played their innocent games, 
to-day a people of darker hue, whose ancestors were 
brought here as slaves from Africa, and who are 
scarcely more civilized than those Indians whom they 
have supplanted, hold possession of the soil. 

A few days after the fort was finished, or on the 
4th of January, 1493, the diminutive Nina set sail 
from Guarico, leaving the simple natives staring 
after her, and in the fort itself and on the shore the 
forty Spaniards who were to await there the return 
of Columbus, in accordance with his promise. Her 
next halt was at the base of a high, tent-shaped moun- 
tain, which Columbus named Monte Cristi, and near 
which disembogued a river, at whose mouth the water 
casks were filled. This stream Columbus named the 
Rio del Oro, or River of Gold, because its sands con- 
tained glittering particles which clung to the hoops 
of the casks as the sailors were rolling them in the 
water. Some have thought that these particles were 
not in reality gold, but the subsequent finding of that 
precious metal in great abundance in its mountain 
tributaries makes it probable that the sands of the 
river were actually golden. The Spaniards had col- 
lected a large quantity of gold from Guacanagari and 
other Indians, and the signs were so favorable that 
Columbus really expected to find that by the time he 



52 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

should return to La Navidad the garrison he left 
there would have accumulated at least a ton of grains 
and nuggets. 

It was at the mouth of the Rio del Oro, or Yaqui, 
as it is now called, that the sailors were fright- 
ened at sight of a manatee, but soothed by the ex- 
planation of their commander that it was probably 
a mermaid. An account is given of such an animal, 
a manatee or mermaid, which was kept by one of the 
Haitian caciques in a small pond, and which fre- 
quently swam about with several children on its back. 
It was called Matoorun, and on hearing its name 
pronounced would crawl out of the water to the hut 
of the cacique; but having been struck with a stick 
at one time by a Spaniard it would never after come 
out of its pond when anybody with clothes on was in 
sight, its friends, the natives, being naked. 

Stories like this were much in vogue immediately 
after the first voyage to America, and in the engrav- 
ings of that period many a great sea monster never 
seen by man was represented. Some of these levia- 
thans, indeed, were shown as tamed by the holy 
men sent out from Spain, and swimming about with 
them on their backs. 

A sight that gladdened all eyes, in the Bay of 
Monte Cristi, was the long - absent Pinta sailing 
toward her sister caravel, commanded by Martin 
Alonso Pinzon, whose brother, Vicente Yahez, was 
captain of the Ma. Columbus was very wroth with 
Martin Alonso for sailing off contrary to his orders, 
but they patched up a truce until old Spain was 
reached, when the latter was so roughly treated, 



FRUITS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 53 

both by the Admiral and King Ferdinand, that he 
died soon after his arrival. However, though we 
might wish to dilate npon the character of Columbus, 
esjDeeially his pettiness and spites, we must not linger 
by the way. but hasten on with him to the end of his 
voyage. A readjustment of the crowded crews was 
made, information exchanged, vessels put in trim for 
the long cruise, and then the two reunited caravels 
sailed together along the north coast of Hispaniola. 
They ran across great sea turtles " as big as 
bucklers." sailed past a coast verdurous and fascinat- 
ing. " level and beautiful." says Columbus. " with 
tall mountains in the interior reminding me of the 
sierras of Cordova: and the whole abounding in 
streams, and offering views of such variety, that the 
thousandth part can not be described. " So charmed 
was he with this portion of the coast that he returned 
to it in the latter part of that year and founded there 
the first city in the Xew World. Cruising in com- 
pany, the caravels passed by a high mountain with a 
cloud-wreathed summit, from the silver-white appear- 
ance of which Columbus called the natural harbor at 
its foot Puerto Plata, or the Silver Port, around 
which to-day is gathered a pretty settlement. Be- 
yond this port, to the eastward, the caravels discov- 
ered and entered the great Bay of Samana. in a cove 
of which, not far from its outermost cape, occurred 
the first encounter with the natives, when the first 
blood was shed. These natives may have been a band 
of predatory Caribs. the cannibals of the southern 
islands, for they were far more warlike than any yet 
seen, and they were on the alert against surprise and 



54 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

capture. Columbus had taken several of the other In- 
dians with him as captives to adorn his triumph in 
Spain, and fain would have made prisoners some of 
these; but they sternly repelled him and his crews, 
sending a flight of arrows among them as they landed. 
This landing at the Bay of Arrows, as Columbus 
called it, was the last the Spaniards made on this voy- 
age. Thence they sailed away, intending to seek the 
mythical island of the Amazons, of which they had 
been told, but soon shifted their course for the home- 
ward voyage to Spain. By so doing they pass beyond 
our view, since we are inquiring into their doings in 
America and not in the Old World. Readers of his- 
tory know of the turbulent passage home, of the 
eventual arrival at Palos, the triumphal march across 
Spain to Barcelona, and the adulation poured upon 
the successful Admiral, then at the zenith of his 
fame. 

In reviewing this first voyage of Columbus to 
America, the scenes identified with which we have 
described, it occurs to me that there were many 
minor discoveries of importance besides the " discov- 
ery " of the New World. We all know, of course, 
that it has been denied, in fact, that he was the first 
to make this " discovery " ; but we are not going to 
discuss the voyages of the Norsemen to America. 
It is enough for us to know that they did not make 
their discoveries known, while Columbus awoke the 
dormant energies of all Europe, and was in the van 
of that movement by which the American continents 
were not only explored but colonized. Doubtless 



FRUITS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 55 

some one else would soon have sailed a similar course 
to his; and it has always been a matter of regret to 
those who have had the cause of humanity at heart 
that the French or English did not discover and civi- 
lize those natives of the ^"ew World, rather than the 
Spaniards. 

However, passing by these great questions, let us 
inquire into the nature of those minor findings of the 
first voyage. In the first place, the variation of the 
compass attracted the attention of Columbus and 
caused him great uneasiness; then, as he proceeded, 
the increasing strength of the trade winds, constantly 
blowing from the east and northeast; after that the 
vast weedy expanse of the Sargasso Sea, with its 
floating seaweed bearing globules like small grapes, 
whence the name. Strange birds appeared at inter- 
vals on the voyage, increasing in number as land was 
approached, like the gulls, sea swallows, the tropic 
bird (Phaethon cethereas), the petrels, and perhaps 
stray humming birds. When land was reached a 
host of novel objects burst upon his astonished and 
delighted senses. First the island itself, different 
from any other segment of land he had ever seen; 
then the inhabitants, with their copper-colored skins, 
their nudity and innocence, their stone implements 
(though similar articles were wrought by the stone- 
age peoples of Europe, it must be confessed), their 
crude pottery and ornaments, and above all the 
canoas. It was from the aboriginal name of these 
dugouts that the word " canoe " was derived. In 
a letter written at Lisbon in 1493 Columbus says: 
" In every one of these islands there are great num- 



56 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

bers of canoas, each one made from a solid log, 
of a narrow shape, somewhat resembling our fustas, 
but swifter in the water. They are navigated solely 
by oars [paddles], and are of different sizes, most of 
them containing seats for eighteen rowers. I saw 
some of them with seventy or eighty rowers; and 
with these they carry on a commerce among the 
islands, which are innumerable." 

The second island they visited in the Bahamas 
" appeared to abound in game, having many meadows 
and groves and some agreeable hills, with an infinite 
variety of birds that sang sweetly and flew in flocks, 
most of them different from what Spain affords." 

" There were also many lakes [lagoons], and near 
one of them they saw a creature like a crocodile, 
seven feet long, and they throwing stones at him 
he ran into the water, where they killed him with 
their spears, admiring his largeness and frightful 
shape. But time afterward made it appear that 
those animals, being scaled and flayed, are good 
meat, the flesh thereof being white and most valued 
by the Indians; and in the island of Hispaniola they 
call them y vanes [iguanas] . They also saw fishes of 
fine colors; but no land creatures appeared except 
large and tame snakes and parrots, and a sort of little 
rabbits shaped like mice but bigger, which they called 
utias" * 

* It is a most interesting fact that a new species of this ratlike 
animal, the utia, was discovered in 1891 on the Plana Keys, Ba- 
hamas. It is called the Capromys Ingraliami. Having long been 
regarded as extinct in the Bahamas, this rediscovery of the Ca- 
promys, or utia, is looked upon as an event of importance. It is 



FRUITS OF THE FIRST VOYAGE 57 

The Haitian Indians had also a small animal 
called the curi, or agouti (Dasyprocta agouti), which 
was sometimes served up at their repasts; but they 
had no large domesticated animals, and no beasts of 
burden of any sort. 

Many words also were added to our language 
after this first voyage, and many more were obtained 
in Mexico: such as yucca, and the manioc, from 
which the cassava, the Indian meal, was obtained; 
mayz, or Indian corn, to which we are indebted for 
both the word and the grain, of inestimable value 
to the world at large; the anana, or pineapple, and 
several other delicious fruits not common in the 
North; caoba, or mahogany, liamaca, or hammock; 
tabaco, cacao, etc. The native name for a hut was 
bohio, meaning one common in the people; but a frail 
shelter, such as the writer has many times slept be- 
neath in the tropical forests of the West Indie-, was 
an a joy pa. a word worthy of adoption into our lan- 
guage, as it would be very serviceable. 

Their king was called a cazique, or cacique; their 
little gods, made of clay and carved from stone, were 
zemes; the Supreme Being was known as Turey. Not 
far from Cape Haitien there is a great cave from 
which, the natives fabled, issued the first pair of 
creatures in human shape that ever lived on the 
island. Their priests ("when they had any) were 
called butios, their national songs areitos fah-ray-ee- 
tos); their dances, or diumbas, they executed to the 

not much larger than a guinea pig, but the utia of Cuba is some- 
times found two feet in length, and of twelve pounds' weight. 



58 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



music of cayvmbas and guiras (pronounced whe-ras), 
which primitive instruments are in use to-day, the 
last-named being merely a long gourd with scarified 
surface, to evoke " music " from which a slender 
stick is rubbed against it briskly. 

From these few citations it will be seen that these 
ignorant natives of the islands, discovered on that 
first voyage to America, though they went about un- 
clothed, yet had a name for everything expressive 
of its use or nature; and, what is more, have con- 
tributed somewhat to the enrichment of our own 
vocabulary. 




The guira, upper and lower 



CHAPTEE VI 



THE CANNIBAL CAKIBS 



In the preceding chapters I have described at 
some length the first voyage of Columbus to the New 
World because it was so prolific in strange adven- 
tures, and resulted in so many new things the exist- 
ence of which had not even been suspected by the 
learned of the Old World. But his second voyage, 
on which he started the 25th of September, 1493, 
I shall use (to adapt a well-worn simile) merely as 
a golden thread on which to string the pearls of 
adventure. In the Life and Voyages of Columbus, 
by Washington Irving, may be found all details per- 
taining to his personality. My aim is to make appear 
real and vivid the scenes not only of his cruisings and 
adventures, but those of others who followed after 
him — in their way equally interesting. 

With a fleet of fourteen caravels and three large 
caracks containing nearly twelve hundred sailors, 
soldiers, cavaliers, priests, monks, and everything 
necessary for successfully planting a colony in the 
islands he had found, he left the harbor of Cadiz 
and embarked on the waters of the deep. Sailing a 
course more southerly than on the first voyage, he 
finally sighted land, the second day of November, 
about midway the chain of islands now known as the 
6 59 



60 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



Lesser Antilles. This crescent-shaped archipelago ex- 
tends from Puerto Rico to the north coast of South 
America, describing the arc of a circle, and has been 
fancifully called " the Bow of Ulysses." The indi- 
vidual isles and islets composing this chain are in 



p= 60 

SECOND VOYAGE 
IN 
WEST INDIAN WATERS 

SCALE OF MILES 




The second voyage, 1493. 

striking contrast with those of the Bahamas, being 
for the most part detached mountain masses, isolated 
peaks, and volcanic cones thrust up from the depths 
of old Ocean. In fact, it has been conjectured that 
they present the remains of a submerged continent, 
sunk in some great cataclysm — all but the summits 
of its highest mountains — and perhaps of that lost 
Atlantis respecting which the early philosophers 
speculated and the poets often wrote and sang. 
Whether or no they at one time united the two con- 
tinents of North and South America is a question 
as yet undetermined. Scientific investigations, such 
as deep-sea soundings and a study of their flora and 



THE CANNIBAL CARIBS 61 

fauna, seem to confirm this theory; but (as some of 
my own contributions toward the solution of this 
problem have shown) if they were at one time in 
union with the continents, it was long ages ago — 
perhaps seons. For one thing, each island has its 
own species of plant and animal, as well as others 
common to all; there are great parrots in Dominica 
that are not found in Guadeloupe, and again a species 
of the same genus in Martinique not seen in Domi- 
nica, only thirty miles away. 

But if we allow ourselves to embark on the sea 
of speculation we shall, I fear, sail about aim- 
lessly without making solid land. So let us cling 
to the main matters of discussion, and for the moment 
follow after Columbus, as he approaches the first 
land he sighted on this second voyage. 

He named it Dominica, on account, the historians 
say, of having first seen it on Sunday; and as " Sab- 
bath Island " — gloriously beautiful, distinctive from 
the common run of islands, even as Sunday stands 
apart from the average week day — I recall my own 
first glimpse of it, when, like Columbus, I saw it ris- 
ing, a vision of loveliness, from the blue Caribbean 
Sea. Such an island appeared to Columbus as he ap- 
proached the Atlantic coast of Dominica, where the 
seas ran too high for him to land, however; and such, 
though smaller, was Marie Gal ante, and yet an- 
other larger isle, which he named Guadalupe. In 
a bay of the last-named he cast anchor and sent a 
boat ashore to investigate. The coast was pic- 
turesque, the forests were vast and fragrant with 
sweet odors; but at the outset the Spaniards made a 



62 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

discovery that caused them to hesitate in their pro- 
posed exploration of the island: no less than that the 
inhabitants of this beautiful island were cannibals. 

Columbus had been somewhat prepared to find 
a fiercer and more warlike people than those he met 
in Cuba and Haiti; in truth, it was to seek them 
that he had on this voyage sailed in a more southerly 
direction, having been informed that their homes 
were here. But it does not appear that he had under- 
stood they were anthropophagi — " eaters of human 
flesh " ; and when his men reported that they had 
found huts ashore with fires over which human limbs 
and pieces of flesh were cooking, he was as aston- 
ished as he was disgusted. I have always had some 
doubts about the truth of this story, for the Spaniards 
had their own reasons for giving the Caribs a bad 
name. Somewhat later they gave the newcomers so 
much trouble that they had to leave them entirely 
alone, and the Spaniards made their alleged canni- 
bal propensities a cloak for hunting them down 
like beasts and selling them into slavery. But still, 
they may have been cannibals; and of one thing we 
are certain : that from them we have derived the term 
" canniba, an aboriginal word meaning man-eater" 
says an old writer. " And finding in canniba the 
word can [Khan] , Columbus was of the opinion that 
these pretended man-eaters were in reality merely 
subjects of the Great Khan of Cathay, who for a long 
time had been scanning these seas in search of slaves." 
Thus we see how a preconceived theory may lead one 
astray; for Columbus, to the end of his days, was al- 
ways seeking in America for the Grand Khan he had 



THE CANNIBAL CARIBS 63 

imagined ought to be there, assuming, of course, that 
the lands he had discovered were the outlying pos- 
sessions of that Oriental potentate. 

Whatever may have been the conclusions of Co- 
lumbus, this discovery furnished the wise men of 
that period material for many learned discussions as 
to the origin of those people, the Caribs, who called 
themselves Callina, or Carina, which signified val- 
iant and brave in war. It resulted, as I have said, 
in the addition of a new word to our vocabulary; 
and for this much we are debtors to the Caribs. 
They were less advanced, perhaps, than the natives 
of the larger islands in the primitive arts of peace, 
but more inured to war, braver, and less inclined to 
submit to Spanish rule. 

Luckily for Columbus and his crews, all the men 
were away when that Carib village was invaded on 
the island of Guadeloupe, else he and his might 
have met with a reception not altogether to their 
liking. Some women appeared, however, and they 
gave a very good account of themselves in the use 
of the bow and arrow; notwithstanding which a few 
were captured and taken to the ships. A party of 
soldiers wandered off into the forest and were lost 
for several days, but finally returned with glowing 
accounts of the wonders they had seen. They could 
see from the ships a great waterfall, descending like a 
shower of feathery arrows from the clouds, and the 
forest aisles were vocal with the songs of birds. 

The natives of the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, Ja- 
maica, and Puerto Rico were so different from these 
warlike Caribs that even the obtuse, gold-seeking 



64 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



Spaniards noticed the distinction. The first-named 
were called Arauacks, or Arawaks: mild-mannered, 



[SSs 




i 


- T '.. -^^'^h^'V' ' invert 




1 


tlHE 


<?4;' 


W;%+ ' 


1 


lr~J'"kilfe,.,-- 






^^•^V-?^^ ' i/Sfl 


1 




"^ "^ T JlllliM j 



The waterfall (Guadeloupe). 



gentle, always disposed for peace; the Caribs were 
their opposites in every respect, being, though " In- 



7KE ;Ay>"3^1 :_L2.3- gf 

- -"_-_- . ■'-- ::A:A ^ " .- :~ei: 

- i 'If-. : r. - ; ' - - r- -: ' _ ... ---■- "-. 

_: ::":_- :-.r. . - ::. .: :: T -:: :::_::. :- " ~~: in ~: :-.: ".-.: 

north eoast of South America, havin^ exi zTumated 

- r- A -_ T _ — -t_ AziTi_^ At t_t 

-"' —::.:::"- :-..:t:"-i -_t~ A -:: - -:. - t_t 

i€ i "_-:: "::.:■:- : a: - : n- - : - __ : _ : 

where A- :.;":"-- ~ -At A : . „ -- " .-: .. : "_-:: 

Ai A~ rin-r :<: ~AA I :-:-. — A~ .:-" -ec- 

: *1t A:.-r-r:A_ :-:_"":- v - :-.' " iA 

- - : : - : -f- ~~~--- Z--- ----- - 

v - - : ;.„_ £: _ 1 . - _ : _ " :_:::_ _.' - .- 

rude, or from Trinidad, near the month of ike 
OrA :•:■:. .: HA :a iA TLA: :AAT i- :_t ~ :- 

- - ::- :;.r £ ^ 
:: .:_ At ::"-: Aaaz n : "t~-i "A. A A- ----- 

■rill : :v.l ". in : aa- : -:--:at: _ A aa - Alaa-. 
A_- - ■;_: : - A-At AA a aaa a a a.: . A: :a 
--ai_a- : A--e 1- Aa :-:: - zt.zil i 



- aa . : a~aa a tia:: - - - ^--_ 

FT.g"-'»" r AaL AA- -~- - £ i "" AiAA Ii£r"_ 

— Ai :'."-* V-. aaa. ~:a-l_ all aa r-n tl. 
At '-iri~-i:-.n- Aat ::i _ -::t :. rery ia; i aaa 
thenj "-- _: ~t Ai aa:: tataaa - ~ aa aaa_ 

t-: . a~a a.t:..-tA-- —:: : n: ; : -- Ar. 

- h ._ A: :■- AA: .:-- ~ "-■ 

_ AtA AA A xtt - ''-'■' I: — ~- r *" - :: 

:L T innotto, the Bum orellana]* which make- Aen 



66 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



of a red color all over. They also adorn the head 
with a little covering of birds' feathers of different 
colors, and bore their ears, lips, and nose for the in- 
sertion of ornaments. About their necks they wear 
necklaces made of the bones of their enemies, of 
the teeth of alligators, agoutis, etc. On great occa- 
sions they wear scarfs and girdles of feathers. . . . 
Their most valued ornaments were gorgets of copper, 

obtained from the Ara- 
waks by plunder, cres- 
cent-shaped and shining, 
and these are most fre- 
quently the only posses- 
sions they leave their 
children when they die. 
They sometimes wear 
cotton cloth as breech 
clouts and aprons, and 
can dye it in various col- 
ors, chiefly red, and they 
had hammocks when dis- 
covered by Columbus. 
They also made fine pot- 
tery, which they baked 
in kilns, and wove fine 
baskets. They culti- 
vated their lands in common. . . . They buried the 
corpse of a chief, or the head of a family, in the 
center of his own dwelling, and then abandoned 
it forever. . . . Their heaven, or future home, 
seems to have been a sort of Mahometan paradise 
of houris and harems for the brave men; and they 




A Carib girl. 
(From a photograph.) 



THE CANNIBAL CABJBS 67 

raised rustic altars, placing upon them fruits and 
flowers. 

" They believe that they have as many souls as 
they can feel beatings of the arteries in their bodies 
besides the principal one, which is in their heart, and 
goes to heaven with its god, who carries it thither 
to live with other gods; and they imagine that they 
live there the same life as man lives here below. 
For they do not think the soul to be so far immaterial 
as to be invisible; but they affirm it to be subtile and 
of thin substance, as a purified body; and they have 
but the same word to signify the heart and the 
soul. Other souls, not in the heart, reside in the 
forest and by the seashore; the former they call 
mabouyas, the latter oumelcou. They believe that 
after death they may go to live in certain fortunate 
islands, where they will have Arawak slaves to serve 
them, swim unwearied in placid streams, and eat of 
delicious fruits. ... It is related that a certain 
young Carib, having been converted to Christianity 
and taken to France, where he was shown many 
strange things at which he showed no astonishment, 
when he returned to his tribe threw off the clothes 
of civilization and painted his body with roucou, be- 
coming as wild and savage as before." * 

" Of the thunder, which they call ' God's voice/ 
they are extremely afraid, and they are prone to 
leave their houses [or huts] after the death of an 

* In this respect that young Carib was not singular, for the 
same disposition is manifested by many of our North American 
Indians as have been wholly or partly civilized, even some of those 
who have graduated with honors at the Indian schools. 



68 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

inmate. As to division of labor, the men make the 
lints and keep them in repair, procure fish and game, 
and some of them also labor in the fields; but the 
women attend to the domestic duties, paint their hus- 
I lands with roucou, spin the cotton yarn, weave ham- 
mocks, etc. They made fire by the friction of two 
sticks, and also made and carried at night torches 
of gum or candle wood." 

This author mentions a peculiar fact, which I 
also noted when I was living with the descendants 
of the Caribs, and that is: " The Caribs have an 
ancient and natural language, such as is peculiar to 
them, and also a bastard speech, with foreign words, 
chiefly Spanish, intermixed. Among themselves they 
always use the natural, but in conversing with Chris- 
tians the corrupt speech. The women also have a 
different speech from the men." r I nis is accounted 
for by a barbarous fact. When the ancient Caribs 
came here from the south, they came as conquerors, 
and killed every adult male Arawak who fell into 
their hands. But they preserved the women and 
children, and thus the Arawak speech, or a trace 
of it, is yet to be found among the Caribs of to-day. 

" Tt hath been observed," continues our author, 
" that both men and women are naturally chaste, and 
when those of other nations gaze curiously at them,' 
and laugh at their nakedness, they are wont to say 
to them, ' You are to look on us only between the 
eyes.' ' Here we see an innocence as natural and as 
free from guile as that of our first parents in Para- 
dise. 

I can testify to the truth of his statement that 



THE CANNIBAL ft) 

" the Carib- ire great 1 batbing 

re genei - .. -citable, and hone 

of the following I can not 
affirm: "It .- - a manifest truth, confirmed 

daily experience in America, that the holy sacrara 

of baptism having I.: ferret 

il never beats nor 1 nits them afterwai 

long as they J 

the training of the young warrio. 

Caril - riled to piei se food, 

suspended from a tree, with an ar: 

- i~. . . . They are said to ha 
ned arrows [probably dipping them in 

the curari poison, for the irat : rtnefa see 

Wal _ . iana]. Like m 

of Amc :icate the 

and the hair on other par- 
hatred of the Ara -ir here 

tilled. Their eabi] : built of pole 

circularly in the ground, drawn togel 
and covered with palm . and in the r of 

llage a building larger than the 

for public assemblages. . . . The Caril 
han : middle stature and 

.smiling countenance, having broad shoulders and 
hips, and most of them are in good plight Their 
are not large and their teeth are per- 

: ;tly white and close - ?t True it Is their compl 
color naturally: their nose* are :: 
and their fore ^.turally, but by arti- 

. for the mothers crush them down r artificially 
.... soon after birth, as also during the 



70 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

time they are nursing, imagining it a kind of 
beauty and perfection. . . . They have large and 
thick feet because they go barefoot, and withal so 
hard that they defy woods, rocks, and thorns. They 
believed in evil spirits, and sought to propitiate them 
by presents of game, fruits, etc." 

All this I have quoted from the author men- 
tioned, because his observations were made when 
the Caribs were living more nearly in a state of 
nature than at the present time. In British Guiana, 
according to an explorer who made of them a special 
study, the Caribs yet live in a state of savagery 
similar to that of the primitive dwellers in the Lesser 
Antilles, and still practice the same customs. 

If this book were merely a narrative of my ad- 
ventures, I should like to linger by the way and tell 
of my own experiences among the Caribs of the pres- 
ent day; but as we are bent upon historical investiga- 
tions I can hardly allow myself that privilege. I was 
young then, and vigorous, seeking adventure not only 
for its own sake, but for the information it might cas- 
ually bring to me; and you may be sure that the pleas- 
ures of that wild life were enhanced by the conscious- 
ness that I was garnering valuable historical and eth- 
nological material. For example, soon after I had 
swung my hammock in the little straw-thatched hut, 
on the windward coast of Dominica, I was served with 
" farine " made from the manioc and roasted ears of 
the maize, exactly as the first Spaniards in these 
islands were served — in the real aboriginal fashion. 
My Indian guide, Meeyong, whose ancestors were 
pure Caribs, and may have been among those who 



THE CANNIBAL CARIBS 



71 



gazed with wondering eyes upon the great, white- 
sailed caracks of the Spaniards as they sailed slowly 
by in 149 3, took me to interview the oldest woman 
of the tribe, almost the sole snrvivor of those who 




A Carib cookhouse (Dominica). 



spoke the original tongue, and also went with me into 
the woods. We climbed the forest-covered mountains 
in search of the great ciceroo, or broad-winged 
parrot, and at night the guide deftly constructed a 
palm-leaf ajoupa, as he had been taught by his 



72 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

father and grandfather, and wove Carib baskets 
of reeds, so well made that they would hold water. 
lie showed me the haunts of the birds, the lizards, 
and the fat grubs of the palm beetle, which last he 
]■< »;isted and ate with great relish, and wove a maia- 
pie, or long, conical basket, in which the grated manioc 
was pressed, the poisonous juice extracted, and the 
meal made ready for baking over a fire into palatable 
cakes.* The game we shot he boucanned over a 
smoking flame of gum wood, after the manner of the 
ancient Caribs — which process gave that distinctive 
name to the far-famed buccaneers for boucaniers). 

* The Carib, by the way, was the inventor of the cassareep, 
which forms the basis of the famous West Indian pepper pot, that 
concoction sought by all gourmets in the tropics. The juice of the 
cassava is evaporated until the poisonous quality is driven out, 
when it becomes an antiseptic capable of preserving meats of 
every kind for a long period. This is placed in a big jar or 
earthen pot, and into it are thrown odds and ends of meat from 
time to time, which the juice of the manioc preserves, and to which 
it imparts a peculiar and agreeable flavor. 



CHAPTER VII 

FIRST FOBTS A5D SETTLEMENTS 

Befoee we follow Columbus further on hi- 
ond voyage, let us complete our sketch of these 
Caribs. whc b ery was the most important of 

his contributions to the fund of knowledge at that 
time. They are also the only tribe or body of In- 
dians in the West Indies whose - gxisf 
to-day. and are confined to but two islands of the 
archipelago in which, at the time of their disc* 
they roamed at large. These islands are Dominica, 
in 15 z north latitude, and Saint Vincent, two de- 
grees farther south, which together contain per- 
haps five hundred Indians, many of whom ar- - 
intimately mixed with the negp - that their dis- 
tinguishing racial features are nearly obliterat 
They dwell on the windward, or east roast, of 
each island, in a territory set apart, where they 
cultivate their lands in common, subsisting mainly 
upon the fruits of their agricultural labors and 

products, eked out by the scant results of the 
chase, such as small birds, agoutis, and iguanas. 
Their huts are almost as primitive in construction 

hey were four hundred years ago. being built of 
palm logs and thatched with leaves from the same 



74 



THE STORIED WEST INblHS 



These are the last vestiges of the [ndians brought 
to the light of civilization by Columbus. But even 
were there no living subjects for us to view, we 

could still adduce 
evidence that they 
once existed here 
from the relics they 
bave left behind. 
The most impor- 
tant of these are 
some rude rock 
carvings, or petro- 
glyphs, which I 
have seen in vari- 
ous islands, such as 
Saint John (one of 
the Virgin group), 
Saint Vincent, and 
Guadeloupe. The 
characters do not 
rise to the dig- 
nity of hieroglyph- 
ics or ideographs, 
and bave no coher- 
ence or continuity, 
like the pictographs 
of the A/tecs and other Mexican [ndians, but are 
merely the chance work of some barbaric artist. T 
may remark, in passing, that in the West Indies there 
are no ruins of greal structures the work of aborigines, 
such as are seen in Mexico, and no remains to indicate 
that the [ndians bere were I'm- advanced in culture. 




Old [ndians of Dominica. 



PTB8T PORTS AND SETTLED 75 

Jr. addition to the g mplement 

war and agrieultur< found throughout 

Jan' • Jonging m* 

the 
neolithic, and eon-, rniiunar and en 

.- -. ched 

■ ■ . <r and arrow hea 

jadeite and most beautifully polished. 

been found in man; 
and on the rhere the; 

their original jy 
markable eolleeti imp] or. er found 

that di St ' at, about 

Some Cj ad buried thorn hundred 

ago, ident the brought 

light — two hundred imp] or ar, Jr. this 

aboriginal armor , 

a giant of them 

ing more than six pounds each and me* 
inch acr< : 

arrior- of those day earned 

and cross* m Sea in their 

Xhai ! i • - 1 s : 

Columbus from Guadalupe no terry through 

the emerald chain of the Caribl 
parting from a sheltered harboi 

ond-ear moun- 

tain, rit dropping anchor in a 

tranded and tth the perfi afted 

from virfi 



76 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



bays mirrored the caravels and caracks as they stole 
past gloomy headlands; swallow-shaped flying fishes 
skimmed the waves, and fell, perchance, into the boats 
drifting astern the larger vessels; flocks of parrots 
new screaming overhead, sweet-voiced songsters war- 
bled in the thickets near the beaches, and those 
airy sprites, the humming birds, glanced athwart the 




A Carib canoe. 



sky. Ah! those were Edenic islands that the Span- 
iards brought to view one after another, fit abodes 
for man in his best estate; yet they were then given 
over to fierce Carib prowlers, soon to be supplanted 
by yet more fiendish Spaniards, whose atrocities were 
to convert these paradisaical retreats into a wilder- 
ness of woe. 

At this time, however, the evil spirits which soon 
after desolated the islands had not been let loose, 



first "7.7- asb -77777: 7 7- 77 

It was with feeling of mingled thankfulness and 

erenee that Columbus visited and named the 
islan - as they came within the raiii : -ion. and 

lay those names still remain. : st 1 them being 
S] anish. Thus Gnadalnpe (or Guadeloupe, as the 
French, its present : wn bis, /_ it ~as named after 
a famous moi stery in Sj ain: Montserrat, after an- 
other; Saint Christopher- was - named, it is said, 
because the peak : i ts rntral mountain (now kn 

Mount Misery reminded the Admiral of the 
_ jd giant win the infan* Jesus hi Ins shoul- 
ders; Antigua was the name of a dty jf Anda- 
lusia: Santa Cruz, the Holv ss; that groui A 
islands north of it he called the Virgins, after 
Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand followers 
B int Thomas and Saint John a - ***& 
nal appellations as Bstowed dumbos; finally, 
the island tying - the west z r hem. known to the 
natives as Borinquen. he named San Juan de Pnert 
Rk r & int John of the Rich Port, because the har- 
boi in which he stopped to water hk 
rich in natural beauties and pi > tive ~ ealth. This 
harbor is the one now known as Asruadilla. or the 

tering Place, in honor of thai rent, and lie- at 
the west end of the island: from it Commons sailed 
directly across the channel to Hispaniola. discovered 

on the previous age, and where he had left the 

smaL garrison at I-a Xavidad. 

S HTmiTicr along the north mast f Hispaniola 
hurrie<I>. assing - essaVely the Bay of Arr 
the SOvei Llonntain. and Monte Crista the fleet at 
last arrived opposite tie site :z L : _ avidad I — as 



78 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

night, but Columbus sent a boat ashore, for he was 
apprehensive of some evil tidings. In truth he had 
good cause to be, for the day before some of his 
men in a small boat had found the decaying re- 
mains of two men, apparently Europeans, in a grassy 
bay near Monte Cristi. On the morrow, indeed, his 
worst fears were more than realized, for it was then 
learned that the garrison had been massacred and the 
fort razed to the ground. This was the gloomy ending 
to that voyage which hitherto had been so bright with 
signs of promise — an ending, indeed, which presaged 
yet greater disappointments in the terrible disasters 
which swiftly followed. Search was made for Ca- 
cique Guacanagari, but it was only after long wait- 
ing that he finally appeared: wounded, ill, depressed, 
yet still the avowed friend of the Spaniards. We 
shall pass over, for the moment, the events that led 
to the death of this unhappy chieftain, the dispersion 
and eventual extinction of his people, and hasten on 
to the founding of Isabella, early in December, 
1493. 

Columbus was anxious to reimburse his sover- 
eigns for their great outlay, and allowed himself 
to be carried away by the prospect of quickly ac- 
quiring the necessary means through the exploita- 
tion of the mines. Having ever in mind the con- 
tiguity of the first city to the Cibao, or gold region, 
he scanned the coast to the east of Monte Cristi for 
an advantageous site, and when he discovered a deep 
basin the vessels were brought inside the line of 
foaming coral reefs upon which the open sea was 
breaking, and there found shelter. "Within this bay 



80 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

a river discharged its waters, and above the sand 
beach where it met the sea rose a steep bluff, form- 
ing a natural breastwork, from the summit of which 
stretched level land to a background of hills. East 
of the bluff is a beach of golden sand, two hundred 
and seventy-five feet in length, with another coral 
headland beyond it and a lagoon inland, circular in 
shape and bordered with logwood and mangroves. 
It was upon this beach that the weary cavaliers and 
sailors, the soldiers and future citizens of the colony 
to be established, were finally disembarked, after 
their long voyage and suspense. Here, also, the 
caravels and caracks discharged their freight — the 
horses, cattle, sheep, munitions of war, provisions, 
plants for cultivation, and articles for barter. 

But to-day, where these scenes transpired there is 
naught but solitude, for this new city, the first to be 
founded by Europeans in the New World, was not 
long occupied. The situation was not salubrious, the 
surrounding country was unfit for easy cultivation, 
and the new settlers died in great numbers; yet with- 
in two months from the day of landing here a church 
was dedicated, the ruins of which, fifty years ago, 
showed it to have been at least one hundred and fifty 
feet in length ; a residence had been built for Colum- 
bus, also a fortress with a circular tower, and a mint, 
or " king's house," for the smelting and storing of 
the gold to be obtained in the hills. 

When I visited this spot in 1891 I came from 
the direction of Puerto Plata, sixty miles away, in a 
little coasting vessel, called a goleta, the master of 
which, a black man, was in search of logwood and 



FIRST FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS 



81 



mahogany. After half a day spent on the deck of the 
goleta. we sighted the foaming breakers on the reefs 
off Isabella, and at last penetrated the narrow chan- 
nel between the coral ledges and gained the month of 
the Bajabonito. the dreariest river I had ever seen. 
Half a mile from the 
river month we ar- 
rived opposite a small 
dwelling house, which 
the generous owner, 
whom I had met at 
Puerto Plata, had 
placed at my disposal. 
In the morning, 
when the sun shone 
upon the forest-cov- 
ered hillside, and the 
mocking birds saluted 
me with floods of mel- 
ody, I quite forgot the 
fleas and mosquitoes 
that had assailed me 
during the night, the 
centipedes and scor- 
pions, of which I had 
been warned . and 
thrilled with the 
thought that the event so long anticipated was near 
at hand: when I should gaze upon the ruins of the 
first city erected in America ! Abandoned more than 
four centuries ago, Isabella had lain neglected, de- 
serted, all this time, slowly going to ruin, and even 




Armor of Columbus. 



82 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

its site forgotten by civilized man, until I sought it 
out and brought it to the notice of my countrymen. 
Only the explorer can understand the satisfaction 
with which I neared the site of that deserted city. 
The air was cool and sweet with the scents of a thou- 
sand flowers, the trees were filled with chattering 
parrots, cooing wood doves, and glancing, gemlike 
humming birds. 

Thus welcomed, and thus attuned with nature's 
harmonies, I approached the site of ancient Isabella. 
I found it covered with a rank growth of cactus, 
logwood, and tropical plants, woven together so closely 
by long, ropelike lianes, and beset with tangled creep- 
ers, that we could hardly penetrate this vegetal bar- 
rier, and my guide had to hew a path with his cutlass 
or machete. 

In short, of the city of Isabella, which at one 
time contained numerous houses built of masonry, 
no vestige remained except shapeless heaps, or mon- 
tones, of rocks, stones, and tiles. I located all the 
principal structures, and found some hewn rocks 
which at one time composed the walls. I also picked 
up many fragments of crucibles that at one time may 
have held gold from the Cibao region and shards of 
tiles that once covered the roofs of important build- 
ings. I lived here a week, visiting the ruins by day- 
light and moonlight, essaying the latter experience 
in hope that I might meet, perchance, some of those 
gallant cavaliers whose unhappy fate it was to perish 
here, and who were said still to haunt this gloomy 
spot. 



CHAPTEE VIII 

THE LAST CACIQUES 

Oxe of tlie finest views offered to the eyes of man 
is that outspread below the Santo Cerro, or Holy 
Hill, of Santo Domingo. The Santo Cerro is about 
six hundred feet in height, and rises sheer above the 
vast central plain which stretches nearly across the 
island from east to west, and between the two moun- 
tain ranges known as the Cerro de Monte Cristi and 
the Cordilleras de Cibao. This fertile and extensive 
plain, beautiful beyond compare, covered with tropi- 
cal forests and traversed by rivers, was first seen by 
Columbus in 1494, and called by him the Vega Real, 
or Royal Plain. Viewing it from the Holy Hill, with 
its visible charms, which so moved Columbus that he 
declared it to surpass all other spots he had ever 
seen, my heart swelled with emotions of gratitude 
to the Great Creator, who has breathed into all nature 
the divine element of beauty. Yet I could not but be 
saddened when I recalled the terrible tragedies that 
had been enacted here: the murdering of individ- 
uals, the massacring of multitudes, and the acts that 
led to the final extinction of those innocent aborigines 
who once made their homes beneath the royal palms, 
and lived here happily until the Spaniard came. 

Although it is thought that the great battle of the 

83 



84: 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



Yega took place near the present town of San- 
tiago de los Caballeros, yet it is averred that Colum- 




The church of Santo Cerro. 



bus himself watched and guided its progress from 
the crest of this same Santo Cerro; and a very aged 
tree, pointed out as that beneath which he stood, is 
called to-day the nispero de Colon, or the medlar 
tree of Columbus. A church of quaint construction 
crowns the hill, along its narrow ridge is a double 
line of palm-thatched huts, between which runs a 
street, and in this miserable hamlet reside a few col- 
ored people, who depend upon the church for a living; 
for the Cerro is a sacred spot, and the inhabitants of 
the Yega all come here once a year at least, and those 
resident near the hill every Saturday, to pay their 
devotions and perform their vows. 

The great battle of the Yega, by which the Indi- 
ans were for a time subdued, took place in the spring 
of 1495, and soon after Columbus began the construe- 



THE LAST CACIQUES 



85 



tion of a series of forts reaching from the city of Isa- 
bella to the heart of the Koyal Plain. The most im- 
portant of these strongholds was that built near the 
foot of the Cerro, and called Concepcion de la Yega. 
This was the fifth place of defence built by Columbus 
in the New World, the first having been La Navidad, 
the second Isabella, the third Santo Tomas, and the 
fourth Jacagua, near the present town of Santiago 
de los Caballeros. Concepcion de la Yega was built 
of brick, with walls from ten to sixteen feet in thick- 
ness, having semicircular bastions at their corners, 




Fort Concepcion de la Vega. 



and inclosed a plaza about two hundred feet square. 
I can give the material and dimensions of this an- 
cient structure with some degree of confidence, as 
I carried on excavations around its walls and made 



86 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

extensive explorations all over the Vega. Around 
the fort erected here grew up a large town, filled 
with gold and silver smiths, and promising to become 
a place of influence ; but seventy years later, one April 
morning, fort and town were totally destroyed by a 
great earthquake, and as trade and commerce had 
long since left the region the settlement was never 
renewed. Most of the surviving inhabitants moved 
to the town of Vega, a few miles distant, and Con- 
cepcion exists to-day in ruin and solitude. It had a 
church and a convent or monastery, and to be in- 
terred in this latter Columbus willed that his remains 
should be taken from Spain to Santo Domingo. 

The convent has disappeared, and of the church 
only the bell tower remains, in a ruinous condi- 
tion. Respecting this bell tower I have a fanci- 
ful story, and it is this: To the town of Concepcion 
was brought a bell that King Ferdinand of Spain 
had sent as a present to the town of Isabella; when 
the latter was abandoned, it was hung in the belfry 
at Concepcion, and called the people to their de- 
votions. After the earthquake the bell disappeared, 
for the belfry was ruined. It was finally forgotten; 
but about a hundred years ago, as a hunter was 
ranging through the woods about the tower, he saw 
a strange object clasped in the branches of a wild 
fig tree. The " fig " of the island is a parasite, grow- 
ing upon other trees, and sometimes completely in- 
wrapping them in ligneous folds. One of these figs 
had sent its inquisitive feelers in among the bricks 
and stones of the ruined tower, and in its explorations 
had come across the old bell, which had been hidden 



THE LAST CACIQUES 



87 



for centuries. No one knows how long it took the 
growing tree to lift the bell from its bed and hold it 
suspended in midair; but that was the object the 
hunter saw as he looked aloft! He reported his dis- 
covery to others, and they cut down the tree, rescued 




Bell tower of the church. 



the bell from its imprisonment, and ever since have 
regarded it with peculiar veneration. 

Other ancient relics which I obtained at and near 
Concepcion were a small lombard, exploded when it 
was fired at the Indians, an iron cross, and one of 



88 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

the veritable cascabels, or hawk bells, taken to the 
island for barter with the Indians. The cascabel 
figures prominently in the history of the island, for 
it may be recalled that after the subjugation of Santo 
Domingo, Columbus ordered every man, woman, and 
child to bring to him at Isabella at least a hawk bell 
full of native gold. It was in vain that the cacique 
of the region plead their inability to do this, and 
offered instead to sow with maize the entire plain, 
from sea to sea, for the support of the Span- 
iards. Columbus was inexorable. Cold was what he 
and his myrmidons had come for; gold they must 
have, to send to their grasping king and queen, who, 
as he explained to the Indians, were possessed of an 
appetite which could only be appeased by great quan- 
tities of the precious metal. 

With the building of Fort Concepcion in 141)5 
the last link was forged in the chain by which Colum- 
bus held the humbled Indians bound and subject to 
his will. Whether he really intended it or not, he 
had prepared the way for their total extinction as a 
people, after inflicting upon them untold miseries. 
The crime of Columbus we might term this oppres- 
sion of a subject people and their final extermina- 
tion, although his policy was subsequently sanctioned 
by his sovereign, Ferdinand, king of Spain. 

When Columbus arrived at Ilispaniola the entire 
island was under the dominion of five great chiefs, 
or caciques. The first he met, as we have seen, 
was that humane and generous man, Guacanagari, 
who not only rescued him and his people from the 
wreck of the flagship, but royally entertained them 



THE LAST CACIQUES 89 

as long as they chose to remain his guests. Tor the 
massacre of La Navidad garrison he was not respon- 
sible, as that was the act of Caonabo, the fierce Carib 
chieftain of the mountains; but he was held respon- 
sible by many Spaniards, as it occurred on his terri- 
tory, which extended from Mole San Nicolas to the 
river Yaqui. 

When Columbus returned to La Navidad, on his 
second voyage, lie brought with him some women of 
Puerto Rico whom he had rescued from the Oaribs 
of Guadalupe. Guacanagari saw and conversed with 
them, and became enamored of one, whom the 
Spaniards called Catalina. Whatever the purport of 
their conversations, it came about that the following 
night Catalina and her female friends all leaped 
overboard and swam ashore, as the ships lay in the 
bay. Some of them were taken captive as they 
reached the shore, but Catalina and two other- es- 
caped to the woods. As Guacanagari did not again 
appear to the Spaniards, and could not be found in 
his village, it was concluded that he had fled with 
his charmer to the mountains. lie had, in truth, 
good r-ause to beware of the Spaniard-, for some of 
them were for hanging him up at once, a-: the insti- 
gator of the massacre. lie again made hi- appear- 
ance soon after the founding of Isabella, and was 
compelled by Columbus to give proof of his friend- 
ship by assisting at a ma—a^-re of the Indians in the 
Vega. After that, overwhelmed by the taunts and 
reproaches of his countrymen, and driven from his 
possessions by the Spaniards, he retired to the interior 
mountains, where he miserably perished, 



90 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



That was the end of gallant Guacanagari, one 
who had befriended the Spaniards from the very 
first, and as reward was hounded to his death. The 
next cacique the Spaniards met was Guarionex, 
whose territory extended from the Yaqui, contiguous 




Bringing gold to Columbus. 



to that of Guacanagari, eastward to the Bay of Sa- 
mana, including the great and fertile Yega. It was 
mainly through his instigation that the Indians were 
prevailed upon to rise against the Spaniards when they 
received their first defeat; it was he who made the 
offer to sow the Vega with maize, in lieu of rendering 
tribute in gold ; and from his tribe came the five hun- 



THE LAST CACIQUES 91 

dred Indians sent home to Spain as slaves by Colum- 
bus. The third cacique was Caonabo, the Carib, who 
pounced upon the fort of Santo Tomas from the 
1 j cart of his caciquedom, which comprised the moun- 
tainous Cibao, so rich in golden treasure. His was 
a vast province, and his capital was over the moun- 
tains, on their southern slopes. 

The easternmost province was known as Higuey, 
and was ruled by a cacique named Gotubanama, who 
was, like all the others, murdered in due time. The 
fifth and last province was Xaragua, which comprised 
the southwestern part of the island, including much 
of what is to-day known as Haiti along its southern 
coast, and was governed by Bohechio, brother-in-law 
of Caonabo. 

One of the most romantic adventures even of 
that age of romance took place in this island soon 
after the first collision between the Spaniards and 
the Indians. Among the soldiers who came out 
with Columbus was a young man of bravery and 
skill, named Alonso de Ojeda. He is particularly 
mentioned as possessing great courage, and excelling 
the average of those dauntless spirits who comprised 
the conquistador es of the New World. He was sent 
to take command of Fort Santo Tomas, in the Cibao, 
or gold region, and while he was there the place was 
invested by Caonabo. Having massacred the gar- 
rison of La Navidad, and having infused some of his 
daring spirit into the Indians under his control, 
Caonabo ventured to attack this isolated fort in the 
mountains. He reduced Ojeda to such extremes that, 
had not a rescuing force come to his assistance from 



92 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Isabella, he might have succumbed to the Indians, 
who surrounded the fort in great numbers. Driven 
off by superior arms, Caonabo retired to his mountain 
fastnesses, but soon returned with augmented force, 
only to be again defeated. Although he had hith- 
erto been invincible among the islanders, he could 
not withstand the shock of firearms and the terrible 
ravages of the bloodhounds. 

After the second repulse, Ojeda conceived a plan 
to capture Caonabo which was not less daring than 
ingenious. With a few chosen companions he made 
the perilous journey over the mountains (until then 
unknown to the Spaniards), and sought out the Carib 
cacique in his capital town of Maguana, where he 
found him surrounded by his warriors. By the exer- 
cise of his powers of craft and duplicity, Ojeda per- 
suaded the cacique to accompany him alone into the 
forest, where he showed him a pair of handcuffs, 
which he told him were bracelets, sent him as a pres- 
ent by the King of Spain himself in recognition of his 
bravery and skill as a warrior. As these manacles 
were bright and shining, and unlike anything the 
simple Indian had ever seen before, he was easily 
persuaded that they were Turey, or a gift from 
Heaven, and induced to slip them on his wrists, ^o 
sooner had he done so, however, than Ojeda (who 
was exceedingly strong and muscular, though small 
in stature) reached over from his saddle, and by ex- 
erting all his strength swung the astonished warrior 
up behind him. The moment this was done his 
companions flanked the pair on horseback, dashed 
the spurs into their steeds, and darted off through 



THE LAST CACIQUI 93 

the forest, before the Indiana could seize their amis 
and hinder them. Manacled as he was, and held at 
the point of the sword, Caonabo was obliged to sub- 
mit, and a- the upshot of this most daring adventure 
he was safely taken to J-ahella. after days of wander- 
ing in the pathless forest, and delivered a prisoner 
to Columbus. It is -aid that he held no animosity 
toward Ojeda for depriving him of his liberty, but, 
on the contrary, had for him the highest 
for whenever he appeared in his cell he would al" - 
ri-e and salute hirn. whereas when Columbus made 
hi- appearance he treated him with indifference. 
He explained this by saying that Ojeda was a brave 
man or he could not have taken hirn captive: while 
he had no proof that Columbus was anything more 
than a coward, and «:-ared nothing at all for his rank. 

Unfortunate Caonabo, the fir-t of f iciqueg 

U be leprived of liberty, was placed aboard a ship 

about to sail for Spain and died on the _ 

II 'is captor, tl inimitable Ojeda. after many otl 
adventures, in which his rashness and valor w 
always - s, finally died, and was buried 

within the doorway of the Franciscan monastery in 
the city of Santo Domingo, in a^r-ordan^e with his 
reque-t. that all who entered there should walk over 

grave. 

In the ship that r-arried Caonabo to Spain Colum- 
bus also took passag and left I-abella in charge of 
his brothers. Don Diego and Don Bartholomew, 
latter was a man of force and courage, in direct con- 
tra- 1 : to Doi _ . and a* tl same time 
more humane than Christopher. He had been sent 



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i ,1 n in" I., i .', ..-in .■ ill,' mill. >nl \ ..I I >,-ii Mil III.. I.. 
III.'W , :lll.l .-li.' K'..|J in in ii , li.'.l .>ll \\ illi M hod \ "I 

follow >'' mi, I .'I'.nl \ .l.lh'il linn I'm I In- iiiiImw anl 
vl.'.-.l ,«l Iv.-I.l.in in. I In I. in. I w i |-i ,-l. il-l\ .In.' llio 
n.' .1 ii ni" of I li*' I n.lnin iiii.I.t I Iim t \i. i,,iim I | n i 

n,..i, -. i... ii.,' r.|. in. i. >,ui ni «. feed i '.m i ( ,.i«. .'|. 

. I, Ml III. I .'II. '.Mil I",', I ill,' II II l\ .' tO ' ''"'I Mil II I. -II. . 

lli.n ivhi.M.I Imiiv'.m t0 n|>|»l\ I >mii I'.;ii ( IimImiiimw 
w n li |mm\ i i. .ii .M "mI.I, in, I in mi.I.t t0 I'ImJiut a 
hiniin.' iniMin.- I Iim . v 111 mi n ,1 . | -mimii mi.1,',1 I li.il In I 
|>mm|>Im Ii.miI.I |>l;inl iim mam mi | ...n I n 1 1 1 ,1 I in, I 
In follow >' i >i'i ni" t0 il'*' niMnni mi I'ml Iim \\ | 

Im ill\ ImnlM.I nut ann 1 Immii>.-Ii( Im. I.. ,.nl\ n- attempt 
in.M linr 1 1 1 m i ni" , il i.M ni,. I mI In |>mm|>Im Ii i.I l-.-.u 

I, ill,'. I l.\ ill. Ml M\, ,' l\ ,' I |I..M III ill.' IIIIIIM Ml in 

l> nil,- In .'Miiiim. i.,Mi w illi Him t Vm i\ in i, w Iim 

h\ v.l in llin niMnni.iin .>l M.miim ('mm, 1 ; ii ii i,.iim\ 
.hi .-Il . ..l.itnn 1 I.m.I.m ,.| :.|- ,in ii.I ,, in, I m\mii n 
i i. Km, I the \«ImI.iiiI.i.Im linn vll \\ Iimii Iim lian 1 I \q\ 
Im, im,I i I,- . ,■ i | .m ,i, ,M.iM Inm I \\ miii n ill\ ,ImI'm;iImi1 



- 

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I 




. . . . 



- . . i h a 






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96 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

cacique. A mutual attachment sprang up between 
them, and he for a while lived with her and her 
people quite contentedly. After they had learned 
a little of each other's language and could converse, 
she told him of rich deposits of gold on the banks 
of a river in her territory, and the soldier obtained 
such fine nuggets there that he concluded he might 
now return to Isabella and make his peace with 
the Adelantado. Don Bartholomew not only par- 
doned him, but when heard the story sent a detach- 
ment of soldiers to investigate. This was in the year 
1496. The Spaniards had now been three years at 
Isabella, and as it had proved a barren settlement 
they abandoned it and founded another city on the 
south coast near the new mines, which was called 
Santo Domingo. 

That was more than four hundred years ago, and 
(as I have narrated in a previous chapter) its struc- 
tures have entirely disappeared. Yet here at one 
time gathered such men famous in history as Christo- 
pher, Diego, and Bartholomew Columbus; here lived 
awhile some of Spain's most gallant cavaliers. Tra- 
ditions are rife about the spot, and it is said by those 
who have hunted in the surrounding forest that Isa- 
bella is haunted by the shades of the disappointed 
hidalgos, who wander mournfully through the gloom, 
and who still retain their native courtesy, for when 
met and accosted they return the salute with a sweep- 
ing bow, but always take off their heads with their 
hats! 



CHAFFEE 

O) this beautiful bland in tate the 

io proviiu , - 

able for the rrm mountain-, the fruitful- 

ilk, and 
: jJ plain-, with abuil 
trough them, 'I I i . 

animal found in it, i 
beast; no lion, nor v i 

and fortunate 

-. • . 

trat bipod- — brutes in 

aid to 

lid all be could foi 
.' - He was 1 

- 

aife of it. <V 
I 

that o: 



98 THE STORIED WEST INDIMS 

which from its isolation had not boon troubled 
by the strangers. Conceiving it to be his duly to 
visit and subjugate these Endians, Don Bartholomew 
set out, in the summer of L496, with an imposing 
array of soldiers, for the province of Xaragua. He 
proceeded along the south coast, crossing rapid 
rivers and passing through a fertile and beautiful 
country, until at Inst he reached the borders of 
Xaragua, where the cacique, who bad learned of his 
coming, met him with his Indian army drawn up in 
battle array. Perceiving, however, the futility of 
opposing such a force as the A-delantado had with 
him, Bohechio, who had been greatly impressed by 
the prowess of the Spaniards, at once abandoned 
whatever hostile intentions he may have had, and 
advanced frankly to proffer the hand of friendship. 

Mis advances were met with equal frankness by 
Don Bartholomew, who was a man well fitted for 
intercourse with these primitive people, and together 
they marched- the steel-clad soldiers of the invading 
army and the naked Indians armed with lances, 
bows, and arrows — to the site of Bohechio's capital. 
It was situated at the head of an inlet now known 
as the Bay of Neiba, not far from the mouth of 
Che river Yaqni (of the south), on the upper waters 
of which lay the late Caonabo's town of Maguana. 
The cacique sent, swift messengers ahead to warn his 
sister of the coming arrival of guests, and when the 
combined armies reached the place a feast was found 
already spread, and the strangers were 1 invited to a 
banquet of all the products of the land. Anacaona, 
Bohechio's sister, lk received the Adelantado and his 



DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIANS 



99 



followers with that natural grace and courtesy for 
which she was so celebrated, manifesting no hostility 
toward them on account of the fate her husband 
[Caonabo] had experienced at their hands. . . . The 




Preparing the feast. (From an old print.) 

Adelantado and his officers were conducted to the 
house of Bohechio, where a banquet was served of 
utias and a great variety of sea and river fish, with 
roots and fruits of excellent quality. Here first the 
Spaniards conquered their repugnance to the iguana, 
the favorite delicacy of the Indians, but which the 
former had regarded with disgust as a species of ser- 
pent." 

T myself can testify to the delicate flavor of the 
iguana flesh, having eaten it often when encamped 
with the Caribs of Dominica; and will remark, 



£,»©. 



100 THE STORIED WEST IN DI MS 

in passing, that it is still a favorite dish with the 
few remaining descendants of the West Indian 
aborigines. Bnt we will not allow anything to divert 
ns from that banquet and the performances that fol- 
lowed. Don Bartholomew was entertained most 
royally during two days, and when he departed it 
was with the assurance Hint Cacique Bohechio would 
render him tribute — not of gold, for his territory did 
not vicld it, bnt of cotton. 

From this scene of sylvan delights the Adelantado 
was suddenly called away, to suppress an insurrection 
in the Vega and to superintend affairs at the new set- 
tlement of San Cristoval, which, from the abundance 
of gold found there, was often called the Golden 
Tower. But he looked back with pleasure to the 
delights of that reception by Bohechio and his beau- 
tiful sister Anacaona, and when the time arrived to 
go for the promised tribute he set forth joyfully. 
He found that the cacique had been true to his 
wo I'd, and had gathered a whole hutful of cotton, 
besides vast quantities of cassava bread, of which 
the Spaniards stood in much need. There then en- 
sued a repetition of the banquets and entertainments, 
the mock battles and tourneys, with which the simple 
natives had regaled him on his previous visit. 
After the tribute was collected, Don Bartholomew 
sent for one of the caravels he had built at Isabella, 
and gave the cacique and his sister a sail over the 
tranquil surface of the bay. They had never seen 
anything resembling this great canoa, with its big 
white sails, like the wings of a gigantic bird, and 
Princess Anacaona fell into transports of delight. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIANS 101 

Perhaps I have been remiss in neglecting to in- 
troduce, or at least more particularly mention, this 
beautiful caciquess, Anacaona, the Golden Flower 
of Xaragua.* She was the wife of Carib Caonabo, 
chief of the Golden House, who had been torn 
from his mountain capital by Alonso de Ojeda 
and transported to Spain. She was then, to all 
intents, a widow when Don Bartholomew met her, 
and as the Adelantado was himself a bachelor — 
well, it is said that he fell in love with this flower- 
like princess and was captivated by her grace and 
beauty. Believing herself to be what she really was 
at that time, the relict of Caonabo, she might have 
felt some resentment toward those who had encom- 
passed his death; but, on the contrary, she showed 
great pleasure in the society of noble Don Bar- 
tholomew Columbus. When, as they approached 
the caravel, a cannon was fired by way of salute, 
she was so frightened that she fell into his arms, 
and he had to reassure her with kind words and 
laughter before she would venture on board that 
great canoe which had so excited her admiration. 
The cruise that ensued was the most wonderful 
adventure the simple princess had ever experienced, 
and as the great sails filled with a gentle breeze, 
and the band played martial airs, she and her 
royal brother knelt at Don Bartholomew's feet, 



* Her name was derived from ana, a flower, and caona, gold— 
Anacaona, the Golden Flower. Similarly, her husband's, from 
caona, gold, and bo, chief, great— Caonabo, the Golden Lord. Also, 
Bohechio, from bo, great; hec, chief; and Mo, country— Cacique 
of a great country. 



102 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

gazing into one another's face with astonishment and 
delight. 

After the caravel was freighted with the tribute 
of cotton, and the Adelantado lingered behind to 
say good-by, there were tears in the eyes of the inno- 
cent princess, and she made him promise to return 
soon to the delightsome Xaragua. They interchanged 
presents, and parted with feelings of mutual esteem. 
Among other things that Anacaona gave Don Bar- 
tholomew were " fourteen chairs of ebony, beautifully 
wrought, and more than sixty earthen vessels of dif- 
ferent sorts for the use of his kitchen and table, all of 
which were ornamented with figures of various kinds, 




Indian implements, Hispaniola. 



fantastic forms, and accurate representations of living 
animals." It is not told what the Adelantado did 
with those valuable gifts; but there are many muse- 
ums in this country and in Europe that would pay 
for them more than their weight in gold. It may be 
recalled that the Indians of the Bahamas and Cuba 
had similar " chairs," made of stone and wood, and 
which they valued highly. 

Alas that the inexorable demands of history com- 
pel me to chronicle a sad sequel to this romantic 



DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIANS 103 

adventure of Don Bartholomew! But his evident 
infatuation and Anacaona's beauty excited the jeal- 
ousy of one who subsequently came to power in the 
island, and the lovely princess was destroyed, together 
with her brother and all his subjects. 

The finding of gold by Diego Mendez turned the 
tide of colonization from the north to the south coast 
of the island, and was the origin of the city of Santo 
Domingo, which yet exists, near the original site 
selected for it by the Adelantado. Don Bartholo- 
mew, acting in accordance with his eminent brother's 
instructions, erected a fort on the eastern bank of 
the Ozama River in 1496; but the settlement that 
clustered around this fort was destroyed by a hur- 
ricane in 1502. During the few years of its exist- 
ence, however, this town of the east bank of the river 
Con the west bank of which the present city stand-; 
was the theater of important events. To it came 
Christopher Columbus after the discovery of Trini- 
dad, on his third voyage, and here he found his sturdy 
brother employed in a business not altogether agree- 
able. If the subjugation and subsequent develop- 
ment of the island had been intrusted altogether 
to Don Bartholomew, we might now have a far dif- 
ferent story to relate, instead of being compelled to 
write of repeated barbarities and massacres. 

But Don Bartholomew, who was more richly en- 
dowed than his brothers with the qualities necessary 
to a leader of men and commander of armies, was 
always compelled by circumstances to act in a subor- 
dinate capacity. During the absence of the Admiral 
there had occurred the uprising of a band of Span- 



104 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

iards under Roldan, who finally became a scourge to 
the whole island, despite the efforts of the Adelantado 
to suppress them. After committing horrible atroci- 
ties in the Vega, they suddenly shifted the scene 
of their depredations to the province of Xaragua, 
and there set in motion a train of events that 
brought about the extinction of those generous In- 
dians who had received the Adelantado so well,* and 
who also extended a welcome to these despicable 
vagabonds. The two brothers Columbus united in 
a last attempt to quell this rebellion, and in doing 
so may have exercised undue severity upon their 
quondam companions; for many were imprisoned, 
and several were hung, without trial and upon un- 
reliable testimony as to their guilt. These oppressive 
measures caused complaints to be sent to Spain, and 
when they reached the ears of the sovereigns an 
officer of the royal household, one Francisco de Boba- 
dilla, was sent to Santo Domingo to inquire into the 
alleged irregularities there. He was invested with 
ample powers for bringing any culprits to justice, 
" to arrest their persons and sequestrate their 
effects," and also furnished with blank letters of 
authority by King Ferdinand which he could fill 
out at his pleasure. When he arrived at Santo 
Domingo we may be sure he found warrant enough 
to proceed against the brothers, Christopher, Diego, 
and Bartholomew, who were in power. As he entered 
the harbor of the new city, the first object that at- 
tracted his attention was the body of a Spaniard 
swinging on a gibbet; the first persons who came out 
to meet him were loud in their complaints of the 



DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIANS 105 

arbitrary acts : C luinbus. The very next morn- 
ing, after he had attended mass, he caused to he read 
from the porch of the little chapel the paper from 
his sovereigns proclaiming him supreme master of 
the island. On the second morning he caused the 
arrest of Don Diego, who had been left in charge of 
the city and its defences, and sent an insolent mes- 
sagc to the Admiral, who was absent in the interior, 
commanding him to appear at once and answer 
charge-. Christopher Columbus, discoverer of the 
Indies and Admiral of the Ocean Sea. felt secure in 
his authority, in view of the solemn compact, or 
" capitulation.** entered into between himself and his 
sovereigns at Granada just before he sailed on his 
first voyage. Believing this message >nly another 
vaporing of some upstart pretender, he hesitated to 
comply with the command: still, as the capital city 
was in a turmoil, he set out to investigate. As he 
neared the city, another messenger met him with a 
paper bearing the king's signature, ordering hini 
t iive credence to Bobadilla and not to oppose his 
wishe-. B>: owing to the inevitable, as a faithful serv- 
ant of his sovereign, he continued his journey to the 
capital and surrendered himself into the hand- ;r 
Bobadilla. who so far transcended his real authority 
as tc cast him into prison. 

This high-handed act and the violence of the 
people, who were now all arrayed against him. led 
Columbus to expect nothing less than death, and when 
at last Bobadilla had decided to send him to Spain. 
and dispatched an officer to take him from the castle 
to the ship, he was in despair, says his biographer, 



[06 THE STORIED WEST IND1KS 

Washington [rving. "When be beheld the officer 
enter with the guard, be thought it was to take bim 
to the scaffold. l Villejo,' said be mournfully to 
the commander of the guard, ' whither are yon tak- 
ing me?' ' To the ship, your Excellency, to em- 
bark for Spain,' replied the other. ' To embark?' 
repeated the Admiral earnestly, l Villejo, do you 
speak the truth?' i By the life of your Excellency,' 
replied the bonesl officer, ' it is true.' With these 
words the Admiral whs comforted, and felt as one 
restored Prom death to life." 

As Don Bartholomew was then at the head of 
the army, seeking out the rebels and endeavoring to 
restore quiet in the distracted island, it was Eeared 
that he, being in possession of arms and having de- 
voted adherents, might make trouble; but he held liis 
duty to the king as above any personal considerations, 
and gave himself up without resistance. Pie, too, 
was placed in irons, and the three brothers were sent 
under guard and in shackles to Spain. 

We can not follow them into'Spain, for pressing 
affairs claim our attention in the island. Under 
Bobadilla the criminal misgovernment of Santo Do- 
mingo became such that the poor Indians sank lower 
and lower, and upon their limbs were riveted shackles 
far stronger than those so unjustly placed upon Co- 
lumbus. It was uol intended by Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella that Bobadilla should do more than inquire into 
the causes of troubles in the island, and so they sent 
out another Spaniard to supersede him- — a human 
monster named Nicolas de Ovando. This man had 
so won their confidence that the sovereigns had no 



mvcTion of the otdi 107 

conception of In- real character; bui as be was ap 
parently modesi and courteous in demeanor, and 
held high rank as a commander in the elevated Order 
of Alcantara, be v.';;- thought to be tlie right man to 
the raeani governorship of Santo Domingo, EL 

- 'l at that port the middle of April, 1502. with the 
larger fleet and the moat magnificent appointment 
that had up to that time reaehed America, and imme- 
diately took upon himself the supreme command. 

Meanwhile Columbus had reinstated himself with 
bis sovereigi • - - - the degree that I 1 
allowed him to fit out and command another - 
pedition, but with explicit ord* touch at 

tlispaniola, It happened, In - -■ thai one oi 
ships became somewhat anseaworthy, and be fr 
advantage of tbfe cireumstanee " -■ the port of 
Santo Domingo, and when off the harbor sent an 
ofljeer asln 1 itb a request thai he be alh - 

n for shelter, as be perceived signs of an ap- 
proaching storm Thw reasonable reqtn • 1 n 
ando refused, and tlj^rj i}j<- Admiral, mor< . i 

- 1 Jjarj bis enemy, learning thai the fleet which 
, 10 carry Bobadilkj baeli 

depart, d that ^ bnrrieai - - arely about 

10 bursi upon the island, and begge* Ovandi - - - 
tain the v< - mtil the storm bad passed, He Ijjih- 

denied shelter ai the port, stood down the < 
and gathered his little fleet within the month of home 
wild ■ rhere he awaited the burrieain ft came 

be bad predieted, eeping the - th fury, 

bing Bobadilla's fleet near tin - - - ra end of the 
blai • - eking and - JJ but one small 

9 



108 THE STOUT RD WEST INDIES 

vessel containing what remained of the property of 
the Admiral, and which alone reached Spain in safety. 

Bobadilla himself was drowned, as his ship was 
sunk, and with him perished Etoldan, the rebel chief, 
and many oilier men of note in the colony. In 
addition to the great loss of life caused by this hur- 
ricane, vast treasure went down with the ill-fated 
fleet — most of the gold accumulated through the ter- 
rible toils of the Indians; but that which was most 
lamented was the largest nugget ever obtained in 
the New World. Tins famous mass of gold was found 
by an Indian woman, a slave in the employ of two 
Spanish miners at the Golden Tower, on the river 
Ileyna. It was so large and regularly shaped that 
the miners, in the first flush of their discovery, roasted 
a pig and had it served upon it, at the same time 
I toast i ng that no potentate of Europe, Asia, or the 
Indies ever had dined off such a valuable table as 
theirs! All this vast treasure still lies buried beneath 
the sea near the cast end of Hispaniola, and awaits 
the coming of some great man who shall imitate Sir 
William Phipps, who found the sunken galleon off 
Puerto Plata. 

The fleet under command of Columbus safely 
weathered the hurricane, though it was scattered by 
the gales, and but for the consummate seamanship 
of the Adelantado one of the vessels would have been 
lost. Though dispersed in various directions, his ves- 
sels all gathered Anally at Port ITcrmoso, on the 
southwest coast of the island, and thence, after under- 
going repairs, departed for the east coast of Hon- 
duras. Few can imagine with what feelings of an- 



rRucmoH of the inmj 109 

guish the Admiral and the Adelantado must Ku 

abandoned the island and people they had bo long 

and vainly striven to redeem from desolation. It 

with sorrow and in disaster that this the last 

s of Columbus Jgun, and in g >ater 

>w and disaster it ended, -hall note when 

we narrate the history of Jamaica. 

Now v oing horror of all that 

hideous history — the massacre of the generous and 
amiable native- of Xaragua. We have seen two of the 
jet their death, Guacanagari and Caonabo; 
the third. Guarionex, who was made captive and 
aboard a vessel of the fleet Columbus had endeavored 
to detain, perished in company with Roldan and Boba- 
dilla. Borne down by the atrocities of the Span- 
iards, whom he had hospitably 1 and gei 
ously supported, the fourth cacique. Boheehio. had 
also died, and tl -ion to the cacique-hip : 
Ived upon his sister, Anacaona. 

Under pretense of collecting tribute, but really 
with sinister intention. Ovando, the governor, 
out. with a large force of foot and cavalry, to 
Xaragua. He ived with the same gracious 

courtesy and entertained with the same hospitality 
that - mown the Adelantado several years be: 
but which he requited in a manner that causes the 
historian to shrink from the task of description. In 
brief, after gathering within a hollow square of his 
steel-clad soldiers the unsuspecting chiefs of the tribe 
and their subject-, under pretense of showing thern 
a novel tourney, he s wrders for their mi 

shot, cut down with the sword, babes and 



HO THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

children were speared in their mothers' arms, women 
were cut to pieces, and men were tortured at the 
stake before being burned in the presence of their 
wives and daughters. No Spaniard lost his life that 
day, but thousands of Indians were slaughtered. 



CHAPTEE X 

A CITY OF SAD MEMORIES 

To those who delight in sensational incidents, in 
accounts of massacres, carnage and deeds of blood, the 
writer recommends a perusal of the history of Santo 
Domingo at this period; but those who can sym- 
pathize with a downtrodden and persecuted people, 
upon whose necks the oppressors had placed the iron 
heel of slavery, will turn with a shudder from nar- 
rations of this character. I would fain draw a veil 
over what transpired after the cruel Ovando came 
to the island as governor; for humanity's sake it 
would be better had he never existed. It matters 
not that an interval of centuries lies between those 
deeds and the present time. In the sight of God, 
human life was as sacred then as now; but with the 
Spaniards of that time it was held as something of 
small value, and they shed blood as one might pour 
out water from a flask; they revelled in deeds of vio- 
lence, and delighted in the infliction of suffering. 

Unfortunate Anacaona, once the pride of Xara- 
gua, the delight of all who beheld her, friend of 
the Spaniards and the benefactor of her people, was 
loaded with chains, taken to the city of Santo Do- 
mingo, and, after being put to the torture, ignomin- 
iously hanged. Such was the barbarous spirit of the 

111 



s 

:■":">.>,' v .• , i ', *. \ % ■ :\ . . • \V. . , 

N - 
. - 

l . 

... 
- 

Si s 

V 



the priroiti /' ■ ■ '<f M.' P< 

l',; ); "ii h tttul I' " ■-r.'-li with (/Ji4 
tl< r»4 nf and imbj . -. 

in ititute, t\u 

>■, \n i ; ,,,H bloodtl 

in I b( ' ■ ■■ ■ ■ ■ , ■ . 

CM If"- r m < , - ,: tbC 

I ' 

<,hl y .< ' - (,f 

l\,<- :■■ ■ ■ ' • ' 

people <,f ( iTm, •'• 
l:.' '. rjuteklv b< ' 

■ ' ' . 

' I ' ting the numhet 

■ '. b I 'oltwttbti ■/' : 

atire ehronfcler of Jama 1 
diffei I... ( • ■ ■ ' ■< - ' - - but 

the natives oi if; fpaniola 1 - r ; 

,:,'■ rnilliij 
the authority &f r 0] me 

the . ■ 1 >ably 

I-. 1 ieh 

horrible wiebgdne&i adnril that in the ibort im 

7,>l of fifty-' ' 

the W< '• I.- - 

oi Hi panioh a million 

'.' ' ' 

into loti {repartvndentc 



A CITY OP SAD MEMORIES 115 

dig in the mines, without rest or intermission, until 
death, their only refuge, put a period to their suffer- 
ings. Such as attempted resistance or escape, their 
merciless tyrants hunted down with dogs, which were 
fed on their flesh. They disregarded sex and age, 
and, with impious and frantic bigotry, even called in 
religion to sanctify their cruelties. Some, more zeal- 
ous than the rest, forced their miserable captives 
into the water, and, after administering to them the 
rite of baptism, cut their throats the next moment, 
to prevent their apostasy! Others made a vow to 
hang or burn thirteen Indians every morning, in 
honor of our Saviour and the Twelve Apostles ! Nor 
were these the excesses only of a blind and remorse- 
less fanaticism. The Spaniards were actuated in 
many instances by such wantonness of malice as is 
wholly unexampled in the history of human deprav- 
ity. . . . Martyr relates that it was a frequent prac- 
tice among them to murder the Indians of Hispaniola 
in sport, or merely, as he observes, ' to keep their 
hands in use. 7 They had an emulation which of 
them could most dexterously strike off the head of 
an Indian at a blow, and wagers frequently depended 
upon this hellish exercise." 

Says Dr. Robertson, in his History of America: 
" Several vessels were fitted out for the Lucayos 
[Bahamas], the commanders of which informed the 
islanders, with whose language they were acquainted, 
that they came from a delicious country, in which 
their departed ancestors resided, by whom they were 
sent to invite them thither, to partake of the bliss 
which they enjoyed. That simple people listened 



116 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

with wonder and credulity, and, fond of visiting their 
friends, followed the Spaniards with eagerness. By 
this artifice above forty thousand were decoyed into 
Hispaniola, to share the sufferings which were the 
lot of the inhabitants of that island, and to mingle 
their groans and tears with those of that wretched 
race of men. Many of them, in the angnish of de- 
spair, refused all manner of sustenance, and, retiring 
to desert caves and unfrequented woods, silently gave 
up the ghost. . . . One of the Lucayans, who was 
more desirous of life, or had greater courage than 
most of his countrymen, procured instruments of 
stone and cut down a large spongy tree called the 
jarama, or silk cotton, the body of which he hollowed 
into a canoe. He then provided himself with pad- 
dles, some maize, and a few calabashes of water, and 
persuaded another man and woman to embark with 
him for the Lucayos. Their navigation was pros- 
perous for near two hundred miles, and they were 
almost within sight of their own long-lost shores, 
when unfortunately they were met by a Spanish ship, 
which brought them back to slavery and sorrow! " 

The worst of these cruelties were practiced in the 
time of the wretched Ovando, who has the unen- 
viable reputation of having murdered the last of the 
caciques. This cacique, a giant in stature, named 
Cotubanama, reigned in the eastern province of 
Higuey. Owing to the oppressions of the Spaniards 
he, too, became rebellious, and Ovando dispatched an 
army to kill him and subdue his tribe. The cam- 
paign was long and bloody, for the natives of Higuey 
were valiant, and, with the fate of their countrymen 



A CITY OF SAD MEMORIES 11? 

in mind, most desperate. At last, however, gallant 
Cotubanama was captured and hanged, like a com- 
mon malefactor, at Santo Domingo. He was the 
last of the native rulers, and after his death there 
was for a time peace in the island — the peace of deso- 
lation and of the desert. 

After the massacre at Xaragua, bands of blood- 
thirsty Spaniards ranged the island for months, seek- 
ing victims for their lusts. Says Las Casas, who was 
in the island at the time, and whose life shines out 
brightly in contrast with those fiendish savages, his 
countrymen: " They wished to inspire terror through- 
out the land. They sought out the miserable In- 
dians who had taken refuge in the mountains and in 
caves, and massacred them without mercy: the aged 
and infirm as well as able-bodied, feeble women and 
helpless children. They cut off the hands of those 
whom they found roving at large, and sent them, as 
they said, to deliver themselves as ' letters to their 
friends,' demanding their surrender. Numberless 
were those whose hands were amputated in this 
manner, and many of them sank down and died by 
the way, through anguish and loss of blood." But 
this does not by any means complete the list of Span- 
ish tortures inflicted upon these helpless people. 
Some were so unutterably fiendish as to be beyond 
mention, having been copied from those malignant 
demons of the Inquisition. Many of the chiefs were 
roasted before slow fires, others hung upon long, low 
gibbets, with their feet just touching the ground, and 
then hacked to pieces with swords. Las Casas says 
that he himself saw four or five of the principal 



l L3 



tiiio sTomr.n wkst ixmr.s 



lords broiled upon wooden gridirons, and that the 
sergeant in charge, when his superior complained 
thai the agoni ing cries "i the wretched victims dis 
turbed his siesta, Riled their mouths with bullets to 
stifle their groans] Las Casas sim^s this :is :i fact, 
and adds that ho knew the sergeant, and was ac 
quainted with his family, then living In Seville, 

WCII may owe oi the historians whom we have 
quoted exclaim with Indignation; c< Aftor reading 
these accounts, who can help forming :i wish that the 
hand ot Heaven, by some miraculous Interposition, 
had swept these European tyrants from the face of 

the earth, who, like 1 so iumuy bo:ists ot prey, ronmoil 

the world only to desolate and destroy) and, more 
remorseless than the fiercest savage, thirsted for 
human blood, without having the Impulse of natural 
appet ii o io plead In I heir defense ! 

It further prooi were needed, we might turn to 
the letters oi Columbus himself, tor in one of them, 
written to the king, ho savs: " |?he [ndians o( llis 
panioln were and are the riches o( the island, for 
it is tho\ who cultivate and make the bread and the 
provisions oi the Christians^ who dig the gold from 
the mines, and perform :ill the offices and labors both 
ot men and beasts. 1 am Informed that since 1 loft 
this Island si\ parts out ot' seven ot' the natives are 
dead, all through ill treatment and inhumanity) some 
1>\ the sword, others by blows and cruel usage, others 
through hunger, The greater part have perished in 
the mountains and glens, whither they have fled, 
from not being able to support the labors imposed 
upon them " 



A city OF SAD MEMORIES I 19 

The massacre of the unlive;, of Xaragua and the 
death of Anacaona took place in L503; but though 
the intelligence of these sad events reached Queen 
Isabella the next year as she lay on her deathbed, 
and she made Ferdinand promise to recall Ovando, 
the author of these iniquities, the governor was 
wringing a rich revenue from the island, and so was 
allowed to remain four years longer. Finally, this 
servant of Satan was called to Spain, where he was 
rewarded with high honors, and in his place was sent 
out l>"n Diego, the son of Columbus. He had long 
been ;in applicant for the position formerly held l>,y 
his Fill her, and after the death of Columbus, in L508, 
he instituted a memorable process againsl his sover 
eign before the Council of the [ndies at Seville. To 
the credit "I this court, after ;i minute investigation 
of his claims, he was at last pronounced hereditary 
viceroy and lord high admiral of all the countries 
mid islands discovered by his father, and declared 
entitled to all his privileges. Ii i: j . improbable, how 
ever, that King Ferdinand would have recognized 
these claims even then had not Don Diego strength 
ened his position by an illustrious marriage, with 
Maria de Toledo, daughter <>f the grand commander 
of Leon, and niece of the ever-infamous Duke r >f 
Alva. 

In the year L5O0 the noble pair arrived here 
as viceroy and vicereine oi Hispaniola, accompanied 
by ;< train of attendants and with inany highborn 
ladies in their suite. I><>n Diego was warmly wel 
corned, and lost no time in erecting a castellated 
palace on the right bank of the Ozama, near its 



120 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



month, the ruins of which may yet be seen, a mass of 
gray rock, still with the semblance of a castle, bnt 
roofless and devoted to ignoble uses. The great city 
wall, fortified and battlemented, which was begun 
shortly before the palace, yet incloses the present capi- 
tal of the island, and the homenage, sl castle also built 
in 1509, still claims attention as one of the finest 




Interior of Santo Domingo church. 

specimens of its kind extant in this hemisphere. This 
is not the castle in which Columbus was confined in 
chains in 1500 (though often claimed as such), for 
that was on the other side of the river, and long since 
fell into ruin. But the chapel, from the doorway of 
which Bobadilla proclaimed his authority for the 
arrest and imprisonment of Columbus, yet exists — or 



A CITY OF SAD MEMORIES 121 

at least a portion of it — on the east bank, opposite 
and overlooking the city. 

I have called this capital a city of sad mem- 
ories, because so many events happened here con- 
nected with the extinction of the Indians and the 
declining years of Columbus. His fortunes may 
be said to have taken a downward turn at Isabella, 
in 1494, after he had sent home to slavery the five 
hundred natives; but it was in connection with 
this city of Santo Domingo that he experienced the 
most cruel reverses of his life. Hither he came at 
the end of his third voyage, in 1498, after the dis- 
covery of Trinidad and the Pearl Islands, only to find 
confusion and destruction rampant; hence he was 
sent in chains by Bobadilla, in 1500; from this port 
he was turned ignominiously away by Ovando, in 
1502; and by the same arrogant governor was re- 
ceived as a subject of charity, after his disastrous 
voyage to Jamaica, in 1504. Hence he sailed, for 
the last time across the Atlantic, to Spain, the same 
year his royal benefactress, Isabella, passed away, 
and but two years before his own demise, in 1506. 
Sad yet glorious memories and events ever to be 
cherished in the hearts of all Americans, this half- 
ruined city of Santo Domingo, on the bank of the 
river Ozama, holds within its walls! It has to-day, 
more than four hundred years after it was founded, 
no less than ten structures dating from the time of 
Don Diego Columbus, whose viceroyship extended to 
1517. 

The head of the Franciscan monastery at that 
time was Pedro de Cordova, at whose suggestion 



122 



TUN STOIC I Nl > WEST IN DINS 



Las Casas undertook to form thai ill-fated Indian 

colons ;|| ( 'lllliana, oil the north coast i>\ Solllll Allier 

ic;i, in i.v'i. The monastery walls are fasl orum 
bling, yel to-day are the grandesl in the capital, with 
deserted corridors in whioh those first missionaries 
«>ncc walked, arches draped with vines, and a rootless 
chapeL So complete is the ruin thai no one can loll 
evicilv whore the remains oi those two famous men, 
Alt»ns(» de Ojedfl and Don Bartholomew Columbus, 

who died ;ind were hnried here, now res!. 

Manx greal names, indeed, ;ire identified with 

(his capital oity of ["Iispaniola, once the seal of a 

New World empire; and (here is none greater than 

thai connected with (he church and monastery of 
Santo DomingO, which was erected carls in the fil'Sl 
decade *>( the sixteenth centnrv, hill still in a state of 
:\iH^\ preservation, This mime is that of Kartolomc 

de Las Casas, who (<w his lifelong efforts in behalf of 
the oppressed Indians was officially designated their 

" proteotor," and whose history of Spanish crimes is 
:i Standing reproach to the country licit gave him 

birth, Attached to the church of Santo Domingo 

.ire the ruined walls n( America's first university 

Pounded by the Dominicans, which was a flourishing 
Bea1 of [earning a hundred years before the Pilgrim 
Fathers landed at Plymouth, and so celebrated that 

the oity beoame known as " the Alliens o\ (he New 

World." Bu1 ohuroh and university are better 
known from their association with Las Casas, who was 

born in 1474, and whose father sailed with (\>lnni 

bus on his first voyage, Me was a contemporary of 
the Admiral, yel, says his biographer, " he survived 



A <:ity OF BAD MBMOlilKl IT; 

linn Ly ; -. i :-. f . y years, on lli v<-<l King l'<i<lin;in<l (ill/ 
, < ;n ( li;irl<-: V eight, I I <rn;i n ( <,t I « n i rx 1 1 < n / < !;, i 

dina] Ximonoi forty-nine, and Pizarro twenty-ftve 
y<-;ir;^ dying in L56(3 :it the age of ninety i,w<>.' 7 

H, was thoughl that L&\ ( '■> a< accompanied f '«< 
Inmbui '-II In third voyage, in 1498, returning when 
!)<• v/;i ; < ni home 111 chain , in I 500 , but it < 
wJ I authenticated thai be came to [fispaniola with 
( )campo m 1 50 ' recci ring ■■> vt pari imiento of In 
diani , III- <- i he k i Kighl yean later li<- wai or 
dained ;' priest, and in 1511 1m- went with I H< 
Velasquez to Cuba, where, in 1514, he became eon 
winced <>f ili<- sinful nature of Indian slavery, " 
nounced his holdings, and wenl to Spain \<> pii ad 
wiili Ferdinand the cause "i the downtrodden ha 
tives, He arrived too lati tosei him, ai hi wai then 
on In deathbed; bul Cardinal XiiDnnr;-, who 
U>\- -a while I';'" ni <J' the kingdom, approved hU 
'•Im no , and he wan senl baci to i [ispaniola em 
powered to do ;ill he could to eorrecl the terrible 

;il/n« !l< •.•/ ; i I li ,v;i il < <l ;il ' v ry I urn \,y l'<,n<<. 

bishop of Burgoi and president <>( the Council of the 
Indies, who himself owned large number* of [ndian 
slaves, and when ()<• ;•< one time told him thai more 
than seven thousand children had perished in three 
months' time in the island of Cuba :<lon<- that hard 
hearted prelate answered* "Well, whal is that to 
me, and wlmi i ■■ ii to the l- ing? " 

f if nothing to your lordship, <>r to the king/' 
indignantly rejoined ka« Casas, "thai all these inno 
cenl soul* should perish? ( > great and eternal God! 
of whai use our preaching when the [ndiam sei 



4^1 nil ' 




t ;f i fJUl 11 k' 




IE^,:V : ;^ M^|$ 



Ivu U'Kmuo »!>' I i . i i . i . 



A city OF HAD MEMORIES 125 

those who call themselve 'Chri itian . ' acting thus 

in Opposition tO ( ' I j r i , t j ; i r j - ! " 

Finally, in L521, he wai allowed to attempt a 
colony for the protection of the [ndians; but it 
failed, through no direct fault of his own, and the 
next year, despairing and almost broken hearted, he 
joined the Dominican brotherhood of Hispaniolfl and 
retired from the yorld, u to the great joy of the 
brothers, and also of the inhabitants of Hi ipaniola " ; 
but for different reasons, The wicked Spaniards 
rejoiced, thinking they now had 1"'" safely interned; 
but during tho e eight years of seclu ion he vas medi 
tating upon his great lifework that monument of 
learning and re earch, chronicle of Spani h atrocitie 
'I he Brief [ielation of the Dei truction of the In 
dies. II'- afterward wont to Spain, and w& appointed 
mi aionary to Guatemala and bishop of Chiapas in 
Mexico, But note, reader mine, that his greate I 
labon were performed in Santo Domingo, and within 
that monai tery (of which but ruined walls remain 
to-day) 'In man conceived the work which will out 
lai ' i he centuriei ! 



CHAPTER XI 

MORE ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 

There have been several contestants for the 
honor of being the oldest settlement of European 
foundation in the New World, but without a doubt 
it must be assigned to the city of Santo Domingo. If 
anything were to-day remaining of Isabella, the first 
city founded by Columbus, on the north coast of the 
island, in 1493, that spot would most certainly be 
entitled to the honor; but while at one time there 
were many houses there, and a floating population 
of hundreds, still Isabella did not long remain a place 
of residence. It was virtually abandoned in 1496, 
when the Adelantado founded Santo Domingo, and, 
after existing in ruins for centuries, its last remains, 
consisting of a few tons of hewn stone, earthen tiles, 
and shards of pottery, were sent to the Columbian Ex- 
position, in 1893. Thus ill-starred Isabella, now rep- 
resented merely by a vacant city site and a name, is 
given over to the bats and owls. 

I have alluded to some of the most interesting 
relics of Spanish times still to be seen in the capital; 
but nearly everything here, in truth, leads us back 
to those ancient days of Spanish domination. There 
is one structure, however, that may be said to pre- 
sent nearly four centuries of Spanish-American his- 
126 



MORE ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 127 

tory in epitome, and that is the old cathedral, which 
stands in the heart of the city. It was planned in 
1514 and finished in 1540, and while almost every 
street, every plaza, and every angle of the inclosing 
walls of the capital is identified with some one of 
Spain's greatest minds when Spain was truly great, 
this ecclesiastical structure overtops them all for in- 
terest, perhaps, except the old university where the 
erudite Las Casas taught and labored. 

There is, in the opinion of many, a great treasure 
in the custody of the cathedral chapter, of its very 
nature unique, and which consists of the sacred dust 
of Columbus. Now, it is perhaps not generally known 
that two cities, Havana and Santo Domingo, at one 
time claimed to possess the time-honored remains of 
the Great Admiral. To know how this strange thing 
happened, we must transport ourselves, in imagina- 
tion, to Spain, the " motherland " of the Spanish colo- 
nies in the West Indies. We must imagine ourselves 
in the city of Yalladolid in the year 1506, and gath- 
ered reverently about the deathbed of the great 
Genoese as, in faint and broken accents, he tells of his 
desire to make one more voyage across the Atlantic, 
and to be interred in the convent of Concepcion de la 
Vega, which he was instrumental in founding, in the 
island of his greatest achievements. This desire is ex- 
pressed in his last will and testament, in accordance 
with which — but not until about the year 1540 — his 
remains were removed from a convent church in 
Seville, whither they had been taken from Valladolid, 
and transported to Santo Domingo. They did not 
obtain final sepulture in the convent of the Vega, 



128 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

however, as it was destroyed by an earthquake about 
that time, but were deposited in the cathedral of the 
capital, then approaching completion. This pious 
office was performed by the noble widow of Don 
Diego Columbus, who also at the same time took 
thither the remains of her husband, who had died 
in 1526. We have no direct evidence that this was 
done, but nineteen years later, or in 1559, the arch- 
bishop of that diocese wrote : " The tomb of Don 
Cristobal Colon, where are his bones, is much vener- 
ated in this cathedral." It is true that there is not 
the slightest record of the sepulture, but this is ex- 
plained by the fact that less than thirty years 
later the capital was bombarded and the city sacked 
by Sir Francis Drake. Fearing the desecration of 
the tomb containing one so well known as Columbus, 
all traces of it are said to have been obliterated by 
covering it over with earth or plaster. Thus all evi- 
dence was finally lost, and for more than two hun- 
dred years thereafter the history of the event was 
preserved solely through local tradition. 

Now we come to another chapter in this strange 
story. In 179 5, when Santo Domingo was ceded to 
France, Spain nobly resolved that the ashes of the 
great discoverer should not rest beneath an alien 
flag, and so she sent an admiral of her navy to re- 
move them to Havana, accompanied by a reputed 
descendant of Columbus, the Duke of Yeragua, 
grandfather of the gentleman of that title whom 
we so highly honored in 1893. These gentlemen of 
Spain came over with a fleet, and, guided by the 
local tradition, which was to the effect that these 



MORE ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 



129 



remains lay at the right of the high altar of the cathe- 
dral, they found and opened a vault beneath the pave- 
ment of the presbytery, on the " gospel side," which 
was about one yard in depth and one in breadth. 
Within this vault they found some plates of lead, 
together with fragments of bone and dust, all which 
were reverentlv collected and transferred with sol- 




Interior of the cathedral, Santo Domingo. 



emn ceremony aboard the man-of-war San Lorenzo, 
then lying in the hart 

They then set sail with their precious relics for 
Havana, where, with pomp and parade, they w 
taken to the cathedral and placed within a niche 
opened for that purpose in the wall at the right of 
the presbytery. A marble tablet was affixed, after 



130 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

the niche was closed, bearing that grandiloquent 
inscription beginning, " restos y imagen del grande 
Colon" which so many travelers have seen and have 
so often transcribed. 

Still another chapter: The Spanish officials to 
whom had been delegated this honorable duty sin- 
cerely believed they had performed it thoroughly 
and satisfactorily. They had found a vault contain- 
ing human bones and dust, and, moreover, it was 
approximately in the spot designated by tradition as 
that where Columbus lay buried. But they had not 
found, and they did not claim they had, any trace 
of an inscription or other evidence showing beyond 
a doubt that these were the remains they had sought ! 
No one ever disputed the correctness of their conclu- 
sions until 1877, eighty-two years after the conjec- 
tural transference, when some workmen were mak- 
ing repairs in the chancel of the cathedral of Santo 
Domingo, another vault was brought to light at the 
left of the altar. This contained only fragments of a 
leaden case, but with an inscription sufficiently legible 
to show that the ashes formerly there were those of 
Don Luis Colon, son of Don Diego, grandson of 
Christopher Columbus, and the first Duke of Ye- 
ragua. The archbishop of the diocese, a learned and 
venerable man, then recalled the tradition (strangely 
for the first time) that the entire presbytery had been 
granted to the Columbus family as a place of sepul- 
ture, and so was moved to institute a search for the 
others. And others were found ! First, the veritable 
vault from which the Havana remains were taken; 
then, separated from it by a slab of stone less than a 



MORE ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 



131 



foot in width, yet another, close to the cathedral wall. 
From this latter was taken a leaden casket in good 
preservation, on the cover or lid of which was an in- 
scription showing that it was, in truth, dedicated to 
the " First Admiral and Discoverer of America." 
This inscription was on the outside; inside the lid 





Leaden casket found in 1877. 



was the following: " Il'tre y Esc' do Varon, Dn. 
Crisioval Colon " - — " Noble and illustrious man, 
Don Christopher Columbus.' 7 A critical examina- 
tion of the contents of the casket revealed human 
bones, some of them well preserved, though the skull 
was missing; a silver plate with the titles of Colum- 
bus ; and a large bullet, which is supposed to have been 
received by him in Africa, the wound from which 
caused him much, pain throughout his life. 

There is the evidence, " in a nutshell/' and per- 
haps the reader may be as well qualified as the writer 



132 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

to judge of the authenticity of the newly discov- 
ered remains; though I myself made a most exhaust- 
ive examination, when I was in Santo Domingo, in 
1892, and came to the conclusion that the real ashes 
of Columbus were still in that island. As I wrote at 
that time: " The error of the Spaniards, in 1795, lay 
in their ignorance of the fact that there were two 
vaults closely contiguous, and that only a few inches 
from the one they opened was another, and the one 
they really sought. Still the Spanish admiral and 
the Duke of Yeragua took the remains of somebody 
to Havana, and if they were not those of the Ad- 
miral, then to whom did they pertain? We can not, 
of course, assume that he had ' two sets of remains,' 
like the Arab marabout in Algiers who is commemo- 
rated by two tombs; but the answer may be found 
in the statement that they were probably those of 
his son, Don Diego, which were taken to the island 
by his widow at the same time his father's ashes were 
transferred thither from Spain." 

At the time of the rediscovery, in 1877, all the 
foreign consuls then resident at Santo Domingo were 
gathered to inspect the vault and casket, in order 
that there might be no suspicion of fraud, and among 
them was the Italian representative, Signor Luigi 
Cambiaso, who afterward issued a document sub- 
stantiating the Dominican claim in every particular. 
Fourteen years later, when I met him there, he was 
of the same opinion still — that the ashes of Columbus 
yet rested where he himself desired they should be 
placed, in the island of Santo Domingo. It was, I 
thought at the time, a strange chance that Signor 



MORE ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 133 

Gambiaso, himself a native of Genoa, in which city 
Columbus was born, should have been resident in 
Santo Domingo during this official examination! 

Another chapter, or, rather, a sequel: In the 
autumn of 1898, after the Spaniards had to evacuate 
Havana, the retiring governor general, Blanco, in- 
vited some dignitaries to be present at the removal 
from their niche in the cathedral of the " only legiti- 
mate remains " of the great Columbus, which he was 
about to take on board a man-of-war and carry to 
Spain. Like his countrymen of a century ago, Gen- 
eral Blanco declared that the remains of Spain's illus- 
trious admiral should not be allowed to rest, even for 
a moment, under an alien banner. So these ashes of 
a Columbus (but whether of the great Christopher or 
of his son, is an open question) were taken on another 
trip across the Atlantic, and found what we hope will 
be their last resting place — beneath the pavement of 
the grand old cathedral of Seville. Counting this last 
voyage, in death and life Columbus made ten trips 
across the Atlantic, without it nine ; though it is prob- 
able that not his remains, but those of his two sons, 
Diego and Ferdinand, now repose beneath that 
marble slab in the Seville cathedral, with its world- 
famous inscription : " A Castila y a Leon, Mundo 
Nuevo did Colon.'''' 

Peace to their ashes, wherever they lie! 

Now let us take up again the thread of Hispa- 
niola's history, and snip off such portions as may seem 
noteworthy. I would not say that, since the days of 
the conquistador es, there have been no men of mark 



i ;i 



in i' HTOUIKI) NN WHT INOIRH 



Who hftVC ri' i'ii lie. i,l ami | Jioii Mm". aboVO limit' IcI 
lo\VS| ImiI il lliciv lia\c Im'cii -ih'li, l!u'\ w.'iv lew, and 
.iic Jillun II l<> liihl A', va rl \ .1 ■■ I • I . I Im i l.i nil w .i- 

Inflicted wiiii the Spanish inoui ii, m :.. who, though 

ilu'\ dill not '1'iwl 80 mans to ilif • i.ik,' .i . iii Spain, yet 
lm,',l limit |»ur.t". wrll Willi the |»r, ',(•(•, I. Ii.mii ,.mi 

ll ',.11,', I |M ,'|','l I I,' I'll,' l\(,MMllll I'CllllllX Wllllt" ,',l 

II, 'I ,Mtl\ llm f\l liit'l l, Ml el lilt" Indian- Ill III panmla, 
ImiI (lie I, Mai divlnm ,>l llu' Island hi a iviiiincr, aa I 
■>'ir,'. aii,l .!■■ a I.i,i,m in llm \r\\ World DollCY, In 
(In- \,'.n l.»l.» H VVaS ivporhal llial llm Spa ma i »!•• 
ivina iniii:; Imiv ,h,l n,M CXCCCd in all eleven ill, mi 
.111,1 ',miI'., and " llm c Ian, I w a-. alum. I brOUgh I to i\ 
desert " Idm srwral expeditions >'' the great Eng 
lisli •.,•.) pirate, Sir I'Vaiui'. Drake, lia>l mmd the fill] 
ol forlOTO Santo I lomingO In 1586, PoV im.laiuv, 

he did nil he could to destroy the capital, after he 
had reduced it b^ his fleet; l»ni the massively con 
•nai,i,',l houses resisted his attempts to fire them, 
so that he was finally induced to compromise on :i 
ran-, an ,»i iwimiin five thousand duoats (about thirty 
thousand dollars) and take his departure, /Vgain, In 
i - i) >, not long before hia death, he harried iln v coasts 
an, I hastened the end oi tlm already moribund colony 
Finally, m 1606, the royal court at Madrid ordered 
it-, ports closed, except the harbor of Santo Do 
mingo, and all the Spanish families into the interior, 
\l.m\ complied, becoming agriculturists oi 8 rude 
sort, though others emigrated to the more prosper 
.Mi-, colonies of Mexico, Ouba, and Peru, leaving 
their plantations uncultivated and their houses to 

EfO l* 1 mm. 



! 

■-. , r. • 




- 
■ 

; 



136 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

cestors had long ruled in the mountains of Baoruco, 
and he himself was educated in the Franciscan monas- 
tery of the capital. Indignant at the cruelties of 
the Spaniards toward his countrymen, and revolting 
at the inhumanity of the man to whom he was 
assigned in a repartimiento, he organized the Indians 
secretly, collected arms from their masters, and fled 
to the mountains. He and his followers only de- 
fended themselves, never attacked; but they kept up 
the fight for more than ten years, eventually securing 
a truce, which was kept for five years, and an honor- 
able peace in 1534. There were then remaining 
about four thousand Indians, and they were assigned 
lands at Boya, about fifty miles north of the capital. 
Henrique had been converted to Christianity while in 
the monastery, and told a missionary that he had 
never failed to repeat his prayers every day during 
the long period of revolt, and that he was now happy 
to conclude a peace, as he desired nothing but justice 
and freedom from slavery. Here, at Boya, the last 
of the native Indians of Hispaniola are said to have 
expired, some time during the seventeenth century; 
and (as I can sadly testify, having searched the island 
over for trace of them) there are no people of the 
aboriginal race remaining in ill-fated Hispaniola. 

It may seem a reflection upon our civilization that 
" a peaceful land has no history," yet such seems to 
be the truth; and were it not for the appalling fact 
that this once happy island had been reduced to peace 
through terrible oppression, we might with pleasure 
note its condition during the succeeding century, for 
there was nothing worthy a narration. Still, as Spain 



MORE ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 137 

was yet at war, in a desultory way, with other nations, 
there were some who looked with covetous eyes upon 
poor, worn-out Santo Domingo. In the year 1655, 
for example, Admirals Penn and Yenables, on their 
way to the island of Jamaica, made an attack 
upon the city; but their troops, being repeatedly 
taken in ambuscaeles, were driven away. The old 
writers ascribe their defeat to a cause which certainly 
never operated before to bring disaster to an armed 
force, and that was an army of crabs! " The land 
crabs," says one, " are found here of immense size, 
and burrow in the sand, at night issuing out in 
great numbers. On the occasion mentioned above 
the English landed an ambuscade to surprise the 
Spanish camp, which, being unprepared, must cer- 
tainly have fallen. The advanced lines from the . 
boats had already formed, and were proceeding to 
take post behind a copse, when they heard the loud 
and quick clatter of horses' feet, and, as they sup- 
posed, of the Spanish horsemen, who were very dex- 
terous, and whose galling onset they had experienced 
the day before. Thus believing themselves discov- 
ered, and dreading an attack before their comrades 
joined them, they embarked precipitately and aban- 
doned the enterprise. But the alarm proved to be 
caused by these large crabs, which, at the sound of 
footsteps, receded to their holes, the noise made by 
their clattering over the dry leaves being that which 
the English soldiers mistook for the sound of cavalry. 
In honor of this ' miracle,' a feast was instituted by 
the natives, and afterAvard celebrated each year, 
under the name of ' the Feast of the Crabs,' on which 



138 THE STORIED WUST INDIES 



occasion a solid gold land crab was carried about in 
procession." 



For (lie last two hundred and (illy years (lie his- 
tory of Santo Domingo, island and capital, has been 
in the main uneventful, and without interest to the 
world nl large. Not that il has been without inci- 
dent, for the demon <>f discord has stalked through- 
out the length and breadth <>f the land; but il has 
presented n<> feature, no aspect, save that <>l a civili- 
zation l<> bo deprecated, n state of government to be 
avoided. lis morals and motives are, and always 
have boon, the lowest ever tolerated by humanity, 
always excepting those of the western portion of the 
island under the government of the Haitian negroes. 

Santo Domingo comprises about two thirds of 
that large and fertile island once known as Hispa- 
niol.-i, and contains a population of about six hundred 
thousand, mostly mulattoes, with a few while people, 
.•ill speaking the Spanish language. 1 1 passed out of 
Spanish hands in 1 V 1 > r> , for ;i time reverted to Spain 
again in L861, I >i 1 1 by a revolt in L863 regained its 
kt independence," and since L865 the governmenl has 
masqueraded ;is a republic. Under President Ulises 
I Eeureaux, who w;is assassinated in duly, L899, the 
people endured oppression for years; but ill hisl- rose 
iii revolt ;ind placed in power an able executive in 
the person of General Juan [sidro Jimenez. 

Santo Domingo to-day furnishes ;i striking illus- 
tratioii of what despotism and misrule may accom- 
plish in ;i hind infinitely rich in natural resources; 
for there are still mountain regions which human 



MORU ABOUT SANTO DOMINGO 



139 



foot has never trod, save that of the Indian or fugi- 
tive negro; mines unworked since they were officially 
closed in 1543, though declared rich a century ago; 
and vast areas of forest and cultivable lands, only 
awaiting the coming of a stable government and civili- 
zation for their profitable development. 




U 



CHAPTER XII 

BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS 

One night in June, about the middle of the 
seventeenth century, a great three-decker galleon was 
plowing through the Windward Passage between 
Cuba and Haiti. Spain at that time traded with her 
colonies across the Atlantic by means of a flota, or 
licet, of galleons, each one of three or four decks, 
and carrying fifty guns, sailing from Seville. This 
particular galleon flew the tia ( <>' of the Spanish vice 
admiral, and was then on her way home from the 
Isfhmns of Panama, laden with a vast store of gold 
and pearls from the west coast of South America. 
Suddenly out of the darkness issued the hail of " Boat 
ahoy! " and, looking over the towering bulwarks of 
his ship, the captain of the galleon saw an insignifi- 
cant pinnace, which he could hardly discern in the 
gloom. kt Get out the crane," he shouted to his nnder- 
officer, "and bring the rascals on deck, boat and all, 
where we can deal with them if they are enemies, 
and treat with them at our leisure if they are 
friends." Eaving thus disposed of the affair, as he 
thought, the captain went below; but the people in 
the pinnace, drawing their little craft alongside, 
made her fast to the gigantic galleon by grappling 
140 



BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS 141 

irons, and, without waiting the Spaniards' pleasure, 
swarmed up the side of the ship. 

Led by a famous French buccaneer called Peter 
the Great, they poured over the bulwarks like a tor- 
rent, each man with a brace of pistols in his belt, 
an arquebus slung over his shoulders, and a great 
knife or cutlass between his teeth. Then the aston- 
ished watch saw that the invaders were bloodthirsty 
pirates, and that they were in danger of losing the 
ship to these daring rascals; but their discovery came 
too late. Swiftly, silently, the terrible buccaneers 
leaped upon the Spanish sailors, stabbing some and 
braining others with their clubbed arquebuses, until 
the deck was cleared. 

Meanwhile, in the cabin down below, the captain 
and the vice admiral were indulging in a game of 
cards and drinking success to their voyage in Span- 
ish wines. A noise as of shuffling feet attracted their 
attention, and looking up they saw a dreadful appari- 
tion on the cabin stairs — a burly pirate standing there, 
with curling beard and naming eyes, in each hand a 
pistol, a shining cutlass between his teeth, and behind 
him yet other ferocious visages, and more grimy 
hands stretched out, holding pistols at full cock and 
pointed at them! 

"Santa Maria Santisima! " burst forth the gal- 
lant vice admiral. " Did these devils come straight 
from infierno? How gained they the deck? " he de- 
manded of the captain. But this officer was quite 
speechless from fright, and Peter the Great answered 
for him: " Never you mind, but show us the hiding 
place of your treasures! " Humiliated and woe- 



L42 



I IK STORIED WEST IN DUOS 



begone, his hands tied behind him, and with a pistol 
held ;ii his head, the vice admiral soon divulged the 
secret lockers where the pearls and jewels were 
stored, and then had the sorrow of seeing his beau- 
tiful galleon at the mercy of the pirates, who turned 
her head aboul and here up for the island in which 
they had their headquarters. The galleon was a 
good sailer, and so, ns these buccaneers did not yearn 
for gore unnecessarily spilled, they gave the Span- 
iards their pinnace in exchange for the ship, and soul, 
them (as many ;is could he crowded into her) oil to 
Cuba in this frail and open boat. li was a sorry 
exchange Tor the Spanish vice admiral; but what 

cared Ihe buccaneers? lie mighl thank his stars that 
they gave him this one chance for his life. 

'Idie galleon was brought to anchor inside a line 
of frothing coral reefs, guarding the south coast ot 

their island. A narrow and tortUOUS passage led to 

Ihe landlocked harbor, only to he entered by a 

skilled pilot; hut once within, it was seen that this 

channel was the gateway to a pirate's paradise. 

And this island? It was called and still hears 

the name of Tortuga. It was Columbus, I think, 
who first gave it this name- Tortuga de Mar, or 

the Sea Turtle, because of its shape. Under its 

lee he obtained shelter from a storm, iii December, 
L492. It is hut a few miles in length, with great 
cliffs having trees on them growing like ivy against 
:i wall, and one good harbor with two entrances, 
each with water deep enough for a seventy-gun 
ship. Around the harhor, completely hidden from 
the sea, lav the pirate town, where lived the rich- 



BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS H;>> 

est planters also, and where the sands were piled 
high with spoils from many a captured ship. The 
island furnished an abundance pf wood for shipbuild- 
ing, wild fruits and vegetables, medicinal plants, wil<l 
boars, wild pigeons, land crabs in did,, almost all 
that the pirates needed for subsistence and for carry- 
ing on their nefarious calling, The only objection- 
able things were the wild dogs, whieh they vainly 
tried to exterminate, and which, like the hogs, were 
a legacy from Spanish occupation in the previous 
century. 

This taking of the vice admiral's precious galleon 
was not the first aggressive act committed by the buc- 
caneers, but it was the first important capture they 

bad made. Neither is the story I have related n 

detached incident in their career, but merely a link 
in a chain of circumstances by which the Spaniards 
were eventually placed on the defensive and almost 
expelled from the Caribbean Sen. 

1 have told how crue] the Spaniards were to the 
unlives of these islands; how they hounded them and 
tortured them, until, as an old writer Ims said, et the 
name of Spaniard was equivalent to that of mur 
(\i'vcv. , ' > From the first the Spaniards claimed exclu- 
sive possession not only of the hinds they discovered, 
but of the adjacent sens; and when, finally, the atten 
lion of other nations, particularly of the French and 
English, was attracted to these rich regions, their sea- 
men and traders were not slow in defying Spanish 
pretensions. Then, as early as L600, the Spaniards 
began a system of persecution, so dw ns they were 
able putting a stop to foreign commerce in West In- 



BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS 145 

dian waters, and seizing all foreign vessels by means 
of their cruisers on the watch, and which were called 
guardia costas. Their arbitrary seizures and their 
cruel treatment of prisoners caused the English and 
French (though these nations were nominally at peace 
with Spain) to encourage the fitting out of privateers 
for the purpose of making reprisals on Spanish com- 
merce. They found themselves in need of some place 
as a depot, or rendezvous, in the West Indies, and 
chartered companies of both nationalities seized upon 
the little island of St. Kitt's. The French com- 
pany was fostered by Cardinal Richelieu, who so 
persistently combated Spain throughout his career. 
Every one embarking in this enterprise was required 
to remain in the island and labor for the benefit of 
the company during three years in return for his 
passage out and back; and these became the much- 
oppressed engages, who were afterward treated as 
slaves by their original masters, and later by the 
buccaneers, who obtained possession of them. 

The English settlers of St. Kitt's were under Sir 
Thomas Warner, an enterprising gentleman who 
labored long and faithfully for the betterment of 
these islands. As both companies, though of differ- 
ent nationalities, had a bond of sympathy in their 
hatred of the Spanish, the French and English set- 
tlers lived on the island amicably. But it was not 
long before this settlement on an island claimed by 
Spain — though it had never been occupied for colo- 
nizing purposes — attracted the attention of the Span- 
iards; and in 1630 a fleet under Don Frederic de 
Toledo, being at Puerto Rico on its way to Brazil, 



146 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

was sent to destroy the colonies, so effectually carry- 
ing out the purposes of the king that all the settlers 
were dispersed, and the island left practically de- 
populated. At the same time the island of Santa 
Cruz, which had been occupied by Dutch settlers, 
was attacked, and these various fugitives belonging 
to three different countries, but all sufferers from 
Spanish severity, united to form a colony which was 
a thorn in the side of Spain for many years. Most of 
them fled to the island of Tortuga, off the north coast 
of Haiti, and banded together for mutual protection 
— these French, Dutch, and English fugitives, with 
the Spaniards as their common enemy. 

Thus we see how, in the first place, the Spaniards 
had excited the horror and aversion of all their Con- 
tinental neighbors through their inhuman treatment 
of the American aborigines; in the second place, how 
they drew upon themselves the united action of the 
French and English by their arbitrary claims; in the 
third place, how they cemented together what would 
otherwise have been harmless colonists into a band of 
predatory rovers, who preyed upon their ships and 
commerce. This was the origin of that class of sea 
rovers known as buccaneers, sprung from the drag- 
ons' teeth sown by the Spaniards during their mis- 
rule in the West Indies. 

At first these wanderers subsisted upon the re- 
sults of the chase and the little gardens they culti- 
vated in Tortuga; then they went over to the larger 
island of Haiti, just across the channel, on hunting 
adventures. Haiti was overrun with wild hogs and 
cattle, sprung from stock the Spaniards had left there 



BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS 147 

many years before, and for a long time the Tortugans 
subsisted upon what these cattle yielded them in 
hides, tallow, and jerked beef. It seems a sort of 
poetic justice that those who were destined to bring 
disaster to the Spanish merchant marine should sub- 
sist upon what Spanish settlers had provided. From 




Indians boucanning fish. 



their peculiar manner of preserving the wild beef, 
they finally received their generic name of bucca- 
neers. After slaughtering a wild bull or cow, they 
cut its flesh into strips and smoked it over a slow fire, 
thus preserving its good qualities — a custom obtained 
from the Caribs. This process was termed boucanier 
in the Norman-French patois, and was corrupted to 
buccaneer, a name that finally stuck to those that 
used it. One class of boucaniers hunted the wild 
cattle merely for their hides, another class speared 



I |s THE STORIED WEST tNDlES 

the wild boars ;m<l pigs for their meat, which they 
salted flown for provisions. While in the forests they 
lived and hunted in pairs, dwelt in rude huts, or 
ajoupas, ;ind became almost as shaggy and uncouth 
as the beasts whose lives they sought. 

A second class of these men stayed at home and 
cultivated the soil, and both classes Labored for the 
support of a third, the spoils of which each shared. 
The men of this third class went to sen in long boats, 
which they made from timber of the island, and 
which the Dutch buccaneers called flei-botes, or 
frei-botes; hence I heir appellation of filibusters, or 
freebooters. When at last these " brethren of the 
sea," variously termed buccaneers and freebooters, 
saw that it was much easier to take a Spanish ship 
or two than to painfully pursue the wild hulls of 
Haiti, they adopted their chosen calling with a zest 
horn of honest conviction in its manifold advantages. 
Peter the Great seems to have been satisfied with 
liis capture of the galleon and sailed for France, leav- 
ing the buccaneers leaderless until another French- 
man, named Lolonnois, took upon himself the com- 
mand. Until this time the buccaneers had refrained 
from unnecessary bloodshed, contenting' themselves 
with the vast plunder they obtained from the ships; 
but Lolonnois had already been a captive among 
the Spaniards, and had experienced their cruelties, 
so he murdered mainly for revenge. Soon after his 
arrival at Tortuga he fell in with a vessel sent out 
in pursuit of him, and, backed valiantly by his cour- 
ageous buccaneers, he attacked and took it. After 
having gained the deck and driven the sailors below, 



BUCCANEERS AXI; TREASURE SEEKERS 140 

be -rood at the hatchway and smote off the heads of 
the ill-fated Spaniards as they came up, drinking 
their lifeblood as it. spouted from their decapitated 
trunks! 

One of the first of his captures was in the Gulf of 
Florida, where a Spanish galleon laden with silver 
had been sunk in a storm. The Spaniard-; of Cuba 
had recovered three hundred thousand dollars' worth 
of the .silver, which they had stored away in huts on 
a desolate cay. The sea rover- surprised the guard 
they had placed over this treasure, murdered some, 
drove away the rest, and carried off the spoils. As 
they w(;r(; sailing home to Tortuga they fell in with a 
ship Laden with cochineal, indigo, and silver, from 
which was obtained plunder to the value of sixty 
thousand dollars. Then, for the second or third time, 
the beach at Treasure Cove, in Tortuga, was the scene 
of revelry and debauchery, which lasted until the 
wretches felt the necessity of setting forth again to 
replenish their exhausted stores. 

And so it went for quite a century. Tortuga 
was the chosen resort of piratical hand-: no sooner 
would one be driven out or exterminated than an- 
other would take possession under an equally brave 
and ready leader. In 1638, eight year- after the 
first buccaneer settlement here, the Spaniards fell 
upon the stay-at-homes and murdered every one, 
so that when the freebooters returned from the sea 
it was to find only corpses and ruin-;. Then a French 
captain and engineer, Le Va--eur, built a fort on the 
top of a high rock that commanded the port, to which 
an attacking party could only approach in single file. 



150 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

This the buccaneers held for many years, and bade 
defiance to the strongest forces sent out against them 
by the King of Spain ; save on one occasion, when the 
Spaniards took and kept it for a short time, though 
it was eventually retaken and its garrison sent to 
Cuba. 

It is known that during the successive occupancies 
of Tortuga by the various pirate bands great treas- 
ure was hidden away in the forest, and in the caves 
with which the island abounds. Now and again the 
present cultivators of Tortuga find coins of ancient 
date, fragments of gold chains, and pieces of quaint 
jewelry, cast up by the waves or revealed by the shift- 
ing sands. It was not without reason that the only 
harbor of the buccaneers was called Treasure Cove, 
nor for nothing that they dug the deep caves 
deeper, hollowing out lateral tunnels and blasting 
holes beneath the frowning cliffs. 

The island now belongs to Haiti, the inhabitants 
of which have not the requisite sagacity to conduct 
an intelligent search for the long-buried treasures; 
and as they resent the intrusion of foreigners, it is 
probable that the buccaneers' spoils will remain an 
unknown quantity for many years to come. Treasure 
Cove is now silent, desolate, and only occasionally 
visited by negroes, whose ancestors, perchance, served 
the buccaneers as slaves, and may have assisted in a 
menial capacity at some of those riotous revels at 
which hogsheads of wine were opened and stood in 
the street for all who passed to drink therefrom. 

Besides the buccaneers mentioned as leaders, 
there were others who acquired unenviable fame, 



BUCCANEERS AXD TEEA-"?-: 9EEKEBS 151 

among them one Moi a an, who was sub- 

entry knighted by Charles II and gov- 

ernor of Jamaica. Although " Sir Henry " Morgan 
a boon companion of the bncea and acquired 

. eat wealth by murder and king of 

nish cities and torture of men and won. fei 
when raised to distinction of another sort was most 
re upon his former comrades. The bucear. 
a body of men banded for piracy may be said to 
have pa- ay with the seventeenth century, and 

after them came the pirates, who plundered in- 
iminately. serving all alike. 

We have had a glimpse of tl. 
the Spaniards in transit from America; but, gTeatly 
as the Spanish ships suffered from the buc< 
they lost infinitely more through storm and hurricane. 

to these the vessels that were sunk thr< 
faulty navigation, by being run on reefs 
and we shall find that Spain parted with mill: 
every year she v g ged in carryir. g ti re from 

the Xew "World to the OlcL 

It is hardly too much to say that nearly e 
island in the Caribbean Sea. particularly Cuba, the 
Isle of Pines, Jamaica, and BSspaniola. is girdled 
with Spanish wi staining as yet . i vered 

millions and millions in gold and silver. We 
not space U. 'be them all; but in the year 

. ^hile the buccaneers were in the heyday of 
their glory, a rich priz matched from under 

their very -. as it were. 

"Within a few hundred miles of Tortuga Island, a 



152 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

native of New England, Captain William Phipps, re- 
covered more than a million dollars from a sunken 
galleon. From a quaint biography by his renowned 
contemporary, Cotton Mather, we learn that our hero 
was horn in 1650, and that as a young man he went 
to Boston, where he married. " lie would frequently 
lei I his wife (hat he should yet he the captain of a 
kino's ship, . . . and that he should he the owner of 
a fair brick house in the Green Lane of North Bos- 
ton. ... By the year 1683, indeed, he became the 
captain of a king's ship, and arrived back at New 
England commander of the Algier Kose, a frigate of 
eighteen guns and ninety-five men. . . . He sailed 
for the West Indies, where he had advice of a Span- 
ish wreck wherein was lost a mighty treasure. Hav- 
ing landed at a Spanish island to careen his ship, his 
men mutinied; but he quelled the mutiny, and on 
arriving at Jamaica he turned them off. . . . 

" Now, with a small company of other men, he 
sailed from thence to Hispaniola, where by the policy 
of his address he fished out of a very old Spaniard 
a little advice about the true spot where lay the 
wreck which he had hitherto been seeking — that it 
was upon a reef of shoals a few leagues to the north- 
ward of Port de la Plata [Puerto Plata], in Hispa- 
niola. And at length, prevailing upon the Duke of 
Albemarle and some other persons of quality to fit 
him out, he again set sail for the fishing ground 
that had been so well baited half a hundred years 
before. 

" Arriving at Port de la Plata, he made a stout 
canoe of a stately cotton tree, so large as to carry 



BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS 153 

eight or ten oars, for the making of which periagua 
(as the natives called it), with the same industry that 
he did everything else, he employed his own hand and 
adz, and endured no little hardship, lying abroad in 
the woods many nights together. This periagua, with 
the tender, being anchored at a place convenient kept 
busking to and again, but could only discern a reef 
of rising shoals thereabouts, called the Boilers, which, 
rising to be within two or three feet of the surface of 
the sea, were yet so steep that a ship striking them 
would immediately sink down — who could say how 
many fathom? — into the ocean. Here they could 
get no pay for their long peeping into the Boilers. 
Xevertheless, as they were upon their return one 
day, one of the men, looking over the side of the 
periagua into the calm water, espied a sea feather 
growing, he judged, out of a rock: whereupon he 
bade one of the Indians to dive and fetch this feather, 
that they might carry home something with them, 
and make at least as fair a triumph as Caligula. The 
diver bringing up the feather, brought therewith a 
surprising story: that he had perceived a number of 
great guns in the water where he had found his 
feather, the report of which great guns exceedingly 
astoni.-hed the whole company, and at once turned 
their despondencies for their ill success into assur- 
ances that they had now lit upon the true spot of 
ground which they had been looking for, in which 
they were further confirmed when the Indian fetched 
up a sow, as they styled it — or a lump of silver weigh- 
ing perhaps two or three hundred pounds. 

"Upon this they prudently buoyed the place, that 



154 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

they might readily find it again, and then went back 
unto their captain, whom for a while they distressed 
with bad news, nothing but bad news. Neverthe- 
less, they so slipped the ' sow ' of silver on one side 
under the table that when he should look that way 
he should see that odd thing before him. At last 
he saw it, and cried out with some agony : ( Why, 
what is this? Whence comes this? ' And then, with 
changed countenances, they told him when and how 
they got it. 

' Then/ said he, ' thanks be to God, we are 
made! ' . . . And so away they went, all hands to 




Old Spanish swords. 

work, and most happily they first fell upon that room 
in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up, 
and they so prospered in their new fishery that in a 
little while they had, without the loss of any man's 
life, brought up thirty-two tuns of silver, for it was 
now come to measuring silver by tuns! 

" But the Spanish wreck, to which Sir William 
had made his first good voyage, was not the only nor 
the richest wreck that he knew to be lying under the 
water. He knew particularly where lay the ship 
in which Governor Bobadilla was cast away, aboard 
which there was, as Peter Martyr says, an entire 



BUCCANEERS AND TREASURE SEEKERS 155 

table of gold of three thousand three hundred and 
ten pounds' weight. . . . 

" And thou rich table with Bo'dilla lost 
In the fair Eden of our Spanish coast, 
In weight three thousand and three hundred pounds, 
But of pure, massy gold : lye thou, not found ; 
Safe, since he's laid under the earth asleep, 
Who learnt where thou dost under water keep." * 

* The Magnalia Christi Americana, from which this account 
was taken, was published in 1702, and as Sir William Phipps had 
then been dead eight years, in very truth his eulogist entitles these 
verses his elegy. 



12 



CHAPTEK XIII 

THE CONQUEST OF HAITI 

Before we leave Hispaniola let us glance at the 
western portion of the island, known to the natives 
as Haiti, or the Highland, which, as it yielded but 
little gold, was early abandoned by the Spaniards. 
After wresting from the peaceful aborigines all the 
precious metal they possessed, and wringing from 
them all they could dig from the mines and sift 
from the river sands (having exterminated the In- 
dians in the process), they practically deserted the 
island for the richer fields of Cuba, Mexico, and the 
American Main. 

Haiti, with its magnificent mountain ranges, its 
deep and capacious harbors, its hills and valleys 
clothed in perpetual verdure nourished by the perfec- 
tion of tropical climates, Avas a veritable Eden; yet, 
deprived of its original inhabitants, for more than 
a century it was practically tenantless. Then the 
famed buccaneers, who had made their headquarters 
on the adjacent island of Tortuga, attracted by its 
beauty and fertility, gave over for the greater part 
their precarious occupation of seeking Spanish gal- 
leons, and took possession of the neglected lands. At 
first individuals, then groups and companies, settled 
there, and in 1664, during the reign of Louis XI V 
156 



THE CONQUEST OF HAITI 15f 

of France, a chartered company of adventurers laid 
claim to the colony, and, nnder a Frenchman named 
D'Ogeron,nourishing settlements were established on 
the larger island. 

They were so strong in 1669 that they sent a 
force to invade the Spanish part of the island, took 
the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, and held it 
until ransomed. The French and Spanish settlers 
were at war for many years, and in 1691 the latter 
sacked and burned the town of Griiarico, or Cape 
Haitien, which a hundred years later was destined 
to be the scene of terrible outrages. 

By the Peace of Ryswick, 1697, the French were 
confirmed in their colonial claims, and from that time 
until the outbreak of the Revolution Haiti made 
great material progress. It was at the height of its 
prosperity from 1750 to 1789: marshes had been 
drained, forests cleared for the planting of coffee, 
roads opened along the coast and far into the moun- 
tain valleys, and handsome villas built upon the hills 
and headlands; and in the cities, as at Port au Prince 
and Cape Haitien, churches, hospitals, aqueducts and 
fountains, had been constructed. These products of 
skill and refinement, however, had been founded on 
slavery; and though the slaves were in the main 
kindly treated, yet their masters held over them abso- 
lute power of life and death. Since 1685 they had 
been governed under the provisions of the Code Noir 
of Louis XIV, which edict provided for their humane 
treatment, though there were frequent examples of 
terrible cruelty. 

We find, in the third quarter of the eighteenth 



158 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

century, nearly half a million black slaves in Haiti, 
while at the same time the whites numbered less 
than forty thousand and the free people of color 
thirty thousand — an ominous disparity, of which the 
negroes in bondage were becoming aware. Still, 
the blacks might have continued submissive for years 
to come had it not been for the turn of events in 
France. In May, 1789, at the assembling of the 
States General, the whites, the ruling people of 
Haiti, were loyal to France and her king. At the 
breaking out of the Revolution public sentiment 
was divided; but when the Assembly proclaimed 
that not only the white inhabitants of France 
and Haiti, but also the colored and black, were en- 
titled to freedom and a voice in affairs, the colony 
was in a ferment. The whites, who had hitherto 
monopolized all power and official position, forswore 
their allegiance to the mother country and in ecstasy 
of rage trampled upon her flag. Encouraged by 
the amis des noirs, or French friends of the blacks, 
a young man of color, named Vincent Oge, then re- 
siding in Paris, and whose mother owned property in 
Haiti, sailed for the island with arms and stores in 
October, 1790, and led an expedition against the 
planters of the north coast, but was defeated and 
broken on the wheel. This was the beginning of a 
veritable reign of terror, rivaling that which soon 
after existed in France, both precipitated by the Revo- 
lution. When that archfiend Robespierre learned of 
the opposition in Haiti to the declared principles of 
the Assembly, he exclaimed : " Perish the colonies, 
then, rather than depart, in the case of our colored 



THE CONQUEST OF HAITI 159 

brethren, from these universal principles of liberty 
and equality which it is onr glory to have laid down ! " 

The revolution in Haiti may be classed under 
three distinct divisions: the first was the revolt of 
the whites against the edict of universal freedom 
proclaimed by the National Assembly at Paris; the 
second the mulatto outbreak; the third, the long- 
dreaded uprising of the blacks, which took place on 
the night of August 21, 1791. It was on a planta- 
tion called Noe, in the parish of Acul, about nine 
miles from Cape Haitien, that the flood so long ex- 
pected was let loose, and the black barbarians poured 
forth to glut their rage in blood and destruction. 
They came down from the mountains on every side, 
like an inundation, committing horrible atrocities on 
the way, one band of miscreants carrying as its stand- 
ard the body of a white infant impaled on a pike. 
They swept the hills and mountains with fire and 
sword, burning dwellings and cane fields, massacring 
all whites who fell into their hands; and the fury 
of this horrid rabble host was only spent after more 
than two thousand men, women, and children had 
fallen victims to their savagery and a thousand sugar 
and coffee estates had been destroyed by fire. 

All, or nearly all, the white residents of the in- 
terior were killed — the elite of the island; but in 
the cities they rallied after the first shock, and final- 
ly, with the assistance of the colored people, repulsed 
the savage mountaineers. The horrors of that up- 
rising exceed belief; they outrage the sensibilities of 
humanity. 

Later on, when the colored people imagined that 



160 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



the whites had betrayed them, they allied themselves 
with the blacks, and a veritable war of extermina- 
tion was conducted. All the planters were massacred 
or compelled to emigrate and the country districts 
were given over entirely to the blacks, in whose; pos- 
session they have since remained. In the mountain 




valleys of Haiti darkness and desolation yet envelop 
the habitations of semisavage negroes, as ignorant and 
paganish as their African ancestors, devoted to ser- 
pent worship and the cannibal practices of the 
voodoo. 

Anarchy, bloodshed, and dissolution reigned su- 
preme in Haiti until 1798, the natives, the French, 
and the English (who had come to the assistance of 
the planters) being engaged in insensate warfare. 



THE CONQUEST OF HAITI 161 

Then out of the chaos of strife was evolved a leader 
for the blacks, the son of an African chief who had 

>een taken in war and sold into slavery. He was born 
in 1743, on a plantation near Cape Haitien owned by 
the Count de Breda, and his name was int. 

He had taught himself reading, writing, a little 

a anetry, and Latin, and as he became . he 

was promoted from the field to the position of coach- 
man by the count 

When the revolt of 171H occurred, and the black 
mof- _ the country for vietir: 

it, who was devoted to the ?er, hid him and 

his family in the 1 taking food to them at the 

risk of his life, and eventually guiding them to the 

st, whence they escaped to the Unite*; 
whither he sent them remittances from the plantation 
so long as it yielded anything. After their flight, hav- 
ing no longer any ties to bind him to the whites, he 
joined the negro bands, among whom his knowle g 
r -ially of the native plants and medicines and 
!1 at surgery, made him The first 

revolt was led by a gigantic negro named Bouekman, 
but thi- fd by three other 

blacks, Jean Fr n, and Jeannot. Their 

character may be inferred from the dreadful acts im- 
puted to the last named, wl. to bathe 
his hands in the blood of his white victims also, and 

xclaiming: " Oh, my friends, ho 
how good, is this white -blood! Let u* take full 
draughts of it while we may ' 

a dually Tonssaint, who was known as L ? Ou ver- 
ture, or The Opener, because he had opened a 



162 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

way to victory and peace, succeeded to the chief 
command, and the ferocity of the negroes was some- 
what mitigated. Declaring himself lieutenant gov- 
ernor of the colony, he resolved to effect a political 
severance from France; but he wrote the Directory: 
" I guaranty, on my personal responsibility, the 
orderly behavior and the good will to France of my 
brethren, the blacks." At the same time he sent 
two of his sons, virtually hostages, to be educated at 
Paris; he kept his pledges, peace prevailed, the Brit- 
ish were finally expelled in 1798, and an insurrec- 
tion of the disaffected mulattoes was quelled. 

Then he bent all his energies to the regeneration 
of Haiti, and he accomplished what no other leader 
had been able to do: the complete pacification of the 
island. His army was rigidly disciplined, agricul- 
ture was encouraged, churches re-established, schools 
opened, and strict justice meted out to all. Every 
ignorant black under him desired and expected a 
high appointment; but his politic answers to their 
appeals generally turned them aside. For instance, 
when an illiterate negro demanded a judicial position, 
Toussaint replied, " Ah, yes, you would make an ad- 
mirable magistrate. Of course you understand Latin. 
No? That is indeed unfortunate, for you know it is 
absolutely indispensable! " 

Toussaint had shown himself not less brave than 
wise and politic ; as, for example, in putting down the 
insurrection of the mulatto insurgent Rigaud. Fall- 
ing into an ambuscade in the mountains near Port de 
Paix, a discharge of musketry sent a shower of balls 
around him, and his private physician fell dead at 



THE CONQUEST OP HAITI 163 

his feet; a plume of feathers in his chapeau was shot 
away, and shortly after that his coachman was killed 
in a narrow pass. Yet he seemed, like Xapoleon, to 
bear a charmed life until his work was done; then 
he fell by indirect attack. In the last insurrection 
the negro was pitted mainly against the mulatto, in 
whose yeins mingled the blood of the white and the 
black; but this blood, instead of cementing their in- 
terests and friendship, bore in its current the ele- 
ments of suspicion, envy, hatred, and detestation. 

At the beginning of this terrible war there were 
half a million blacks and not more than seventy 
thousand whites and mulattoes. Toussaint used to 
convey this fact most forcibly to his followers by 
filling a glass with grains of black maize among 
which were scattered a few grains of white. " You 
are the black maize," he would say; " the others are 
the white." Then he shook the glass. " Where are 
the white grains now?" he exclaimed exultantly. 
" Lo, they have disappeared! " 

In the last year of the eighteenth century 
peace and prosperity were apparently restored to 
unfortunate Haiti, and it would seem as though they 
might continue indefinitely, or at least during the 
lifetime of Toussaint. At this time, however, he 
came into collision with the insatiate Bonaparte, to 
whom, having completely pacified the island, he 
had sent two letters, addressed. " The First of the 
Blacks to the First of the Whites," but which the 
latter did not deign to answer. Meanwhile, Bona- 
parte had returned from Egypt and overturned the 
Directorv; he was then on his pinnacle, and would 



Mil 



Till': STORIED WiiST INIHTCH 



share in I 'g wiili qo ni:iii, l»hirk or white, The 

acti 1 of Ti "i .mm 1 were looked upon as presumptuous) 
and when the constitution drafted by hi oounoil 
arrived, in May, i s <><>, by which the colony was i" 
hr virtually independent, l>>ii under the guardian 

■ Inn oi France, witli 1 li«' liberator as go vor 'general 

for li ic, In Pate warn sealed, The First ( tonsul's 
only answer was the sending oi p floel oi sixty ships 
and thirty tlionsand men, commanded by General 
Leelero, Pauline Bonaparte's husband, Pauline her 
ell was wiili the general, and Napoleons enemies 
have more than hinted thai il was as much to rid 
himseJ i of hi import unate ister and her husband of 
low degree as bo t'econouer [Iaiti, thai he sonl them 
on 1 Ins expedition I 

[laving overcome :ill opposition ;ii home, Tons 
.mil nc\! proceeded to :i<l<l to [Iaiti thai portion 
known as Santo Domingo, and with ten thousand men 
ho entered the capital city on the 2d of January, 
1801, When the governor of Santo Domingo handed 
him the keys of the city, Toussainl said solemnly, lk I 
nccepl them in the uame of the French Republic 5 " 
so there was no occasion or excuse for Bonaparte 
to proceed againsl him as :i rebellious ohiefj yel one 
vear from thai time, or in January, L802, the sliips 
<A' Franoe were oil the north ooasl of [lispaniola, 
nnd their men and armamenl were being landed, 
Anticipating the favorable conclusion of the Peace 
of Aniifii:;, l>\ which he found his hands free again, 
with no war in Europe i<> engage his armies, Bona 
parte availed himself <>f the opportunity for punish 
oi" one whom he ohose i<» regard as :i rebel against 



THE 's.'V.h /] Of HAITI ]<;;, 

bin authority J', vai probably the effect that a free 
colony like that of Haiti vould have upon the •• 
holding colonic &i France that induced Bonaparte 
to tend rmt thin formidable armament, and to >acri 
fiee iiijon the altar of hi* policy and ambition* the 

of the I 1 lie, of the A Ipa, and of the Rhi 
With 1 ,':'■!'■.■■ '■•. in-, beautiful vife, vent out 

■ ral officer*, >uch a* liocharnboa i, liigaud, Petie 
ill former opponent* and enemies of 
Tou**aint, of vhom the two la*t named vere destined 
r?eed him in the government of the inland* 
To oppose the ti fcteran* of Napoleon, men 

i bad been accn rtomod to under the m 

- e, I o aint bail bet v< ■ ■■■ i ■ ' ■■' n and t ■ ■ 
thousand whiter i onl J.' arning that the & 

rnbarking a portion of il al the Ba / 

be made in i vay thither to ■<■'■ for inn. 

Wlf ■■ ■ , ■ :.'!, If uH' //ill, Q -,!./, ,U Ji 

ment at vhat be beheld imi?d to hi i offt i 

: ' We are lo*t! A II F ranee i i coming to in rade our 
pooi " 'I I '• eitj of Banto Dom itch bad 

been left in charge of To brother, Paul, loon 

fell into the band* of the French, and landing 
effected at Fort Dauphin, at Port an Prince, and at 
Oape llaitien Under Tou**aint vere four bi 

f»ral •; ( ''■< Laplume, I >> ■ ■■■ ' 

tophe, of yhom the k ■». t vo h I ai 

unique '.■■ m rement '<f Haitian inde 

pendence, f/hri*tophc, a native of the bland of Q 
nada, an ei k, of majettic presence 

and to vering ambitic rmmand at tin I 

and vhen b ■ nt bim a rommon i to mrrender 



L$6 rHE STORIED WEST INDIES 

ho replied to the messenger: " Go bell your general 
that the French shall march here only over ashes, 
and that the ground shall burn beneath their feet! 
lie \\ ;i> true to his word, for, when threatened by 
sea and by land, and ho found defense impossible, be 
set fire to the city and retreated to the mountain 
fastnesses, carrving two thousand whites as prisoners, 
When Toussaint reached the region of the Cape, he 
was met by multitudes of fugitives, be saw the city 
in ashes, and, recognizing that events bad hurried 
manors beyond his control, be was overwhelmed with 
despair and grief, 

Soon all the ports were in possession oi the 
French, but the blacks were safe from direct attack 
in the mountain strongholds. Unassisted, neither 
side could prevail against the other, so the French 
commander had recourse to strategy. He had 

brought with him Toussaiut's two sous, to whom 

Bonaparte had given an interview on the eve of 
their departure, M Your father is a groat man/' he 
had said to them, c< and has rendered many a service 
to France, Toll him 1 say so. and toll him not to 
believe I have any hostile intention against the 
island. The troops I send are not designed to tight 
the natives, but to increase their strength, and the 
man I have appointed to command is my own brother- 
in-law ! 

These sons Leclerc now sour to Toussaint, with 
a demand that ho come to him and yield submis- 
sion, or send his children back as actual hostages, 
Tho interview between sons and parents was most 
affecting, and for a time Toussaint was inclined to 



THE CONQUEST OF HAITI 



167 



accept the terms, but finally lie said : " I can not ! 
The First Consul offers me peace, yet his general no 
sooner arrives than he rushes into war. No; my 
country demands my first consideration. Take back 



my sons 



He intrenched his force at the fort of 



Crete a Pierrot, and against him marched a French 
army of twenty 
thousand men 
under Kocham- 
beau, whom he 
at first outgen- 
eraled and de- 
feated with se- 
vere loss; but, 
not receiving 
the assistance he 
had expected 
from his subor- 
dinates, he was 
compelled to re- 
treat. Soon, 
through convic- 
tion that fur- 
ther resistance 
would be hope- 
less and being offered advantageous terms by Leclerc, 
he renounced his command and declared: "I accept 
everything which is favorable for the people and for 
the army; as for myself, I wish to live in retirement." 
He had fought to retain Haiti for France, he had 
fought against French pretensions; his only thought 
was for his country. 




Toussaint L'Ouverture. 



CHAPTER XIV 

BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 

Toussaint retired to his plantation near the Cape, 
and the island was at peace. But Bonaparte, at a 
distance, could not know that Toussaint's was the 
only will that held the blacks in restraint, and sent 
orders to Leclerc for his arrest and deportation to 
France. In the dead of night the negro chief was 
dragged from his bed, two blacks who attempted to 
defend him being killed on the spot, and taken on 
board a man-of-war, which at once set sail. Arrived 
in France, by orders of Napoleon he was separated 
from his wife and children and confined in a dreary 
castle on the northern frontier. This was in June, 
1802; one morning in the April following Tous- 
saint L'Ouverture was found by his jailer cold in 
death. Thus miserably perished the one great patriot 
of Haiti, a victim of Bonaparte's ambition. He died 
in poverty, having accumulated but little wealth, 
though with every opportunity for unlimited acquisi- 
tion. Still, he had maintained a certain magnificence 
of surroundings and official state, and Bonaparte be- 
lieved he had vast treasure concealed in the island. 
When he sent spies to interrogate him, however, 
Toussaint sadly said, " No; the treasures which you 
168 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 169 

seek are not those I have lost! " — meaning his wife, 
children, and liberty. 

The deportation of Tonssaint was soon recognized 
as a fatal error; for the blacks, excited and alarmed 
and no longer having any one to check them, at once 
flew to arms. The mountaineers again invaded the 
coast country, led by a ferocious negro, who fought 
half naked, his only insignia of authority being a 
pair of epaulets tied to his brawny shoulders. He 
soon fell, but not before the revolt had spread over 
the whole island. The great chiefs Dessalines and 
Christophe were at the outset sullenly obedient to 
Leclerc, even pursuing and killing bodies of rebel- 
lious blacks. They could well afford to be patient, for 
they now had a terrible ally in yellow fever, which 
had attacked the unacclimated Europeans and was 
reaping a dreadful harvest of death. In a short time 
thousands of soldiers perished, including fifteen hun- 
dred officers, many of them famous veterans of Na- 
poleon's Continental wars. The character of the sur- 
vivors was changed completely, gloom, ferocity, and 
recklessness taking the place of feelings more in ac- 
cord with their usual bearing. When at last Petion 
and Clervaux threw off their allegiance, spiked the 
guns of the fort at the Cape and took to the hills, the 
French garrison was but a few hundred strong. Each 
side was suspicious of the other, and with good reason. 
At a banquet given by Leclerc one night the guests 
were thrown into confusion and alarm by the surly 
Christophe, who, when pressed by a French officer to 
drink a glass of wine he had poured out for him, 
suspecting it might be poisoned, shouted : " Dost 



170 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



know, thou little white thing, that if I had drunk the 
wine which thou pouredst out I should have desired 
to drink thy blood and that of thy general ! " 

A few days later, indeed, he and Dessalines were 
investing the city of the Cape with their black sol- 
diers, and the ill- 
fated Leclerc, shut 
up within the 
walls, unable to 
escape by sea be- 
cause of the loss of 
his sailors by the 
plague, himself 
succumbed to the 
disease in Novem- 
ber, and soon ex- 
pired. The be- 
reaved Pauline 
found sailors 
enough to take 
her to France, and 
on arrival at Paris 
was tenderly em- 
braced by her 
brother, to whom 
she told the terrible story of defeat and annihilation. 
Napoleon listened in silence, and then said: " Here, 
then, is all that remains of my fine army: the body of a 
brother-in-law, of a general, my right arm, a handful 
of dust. All has perished, all will perish! Fatal con- 
quest! Cursed land! Perfidious colonists! A wretched 
slave in revolt ! These are the cause of so many evils." 




General Jean Jacques Dessalines. 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 171 

Should lie not rather have said: " Perfidious 
Bonaparte, who sent away so many brave warriors, 
that they might not throw their bayonets across the 
road to the imperial throne, whither he was urged 
by his insatiate desires " ? 

The command of the French now devolved upon 
General Rochambeau, the deformed, degenerate son 
of an illustrious sire who had won glorious laurels 
in behalf of American independence. Having re- 
ceived re-enforcements enough to bring the number 
of his troops up to twenty thousand, he spared neither 
sex nor age in the pursuit of his one purpose — to 
completely subjugate the blacks. Four hundred cap- 
tives, it is said, were drowned by his orders, and 
five hundred more shot and cast into a great pit, the 
wounded with the dead. To avenge this slaughter 
of his countrymen, Dessalines took as many French 
soldiers whom he had captured and hung them on 
gibbets in sight of their former companions-in-arms. 
Their exploits in Europe, in praise of which the whole 
world rang, availed not to save them from ignomini- 
ous deaths at the hands of black barbarians! 

Passion, revenge, lust, and cruelty ran riot over 
the land, and at last, to crown his infamies, Rocham- 
beau sent to Cuba for Spanish bloodhounds. Three 
hundred years before, these loathsome companions of 
degenerate man had been employed by the Spaniards 
to destroy the inoffensive Indians of this same island, 
where, sad to relate, a soldier of that nation which has 
often aimed to lead in modern civilization appeals to 
the same inhuman means for gratifying his ferocious 
instincts! An amphitheater was improvised in the 
13 



172 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

court of a convent, and as an experiment the savage 
brutes were turned loose upon black men bound to 
posts, whom they tore to pieces and devoured, amid 
the acclamations of approving audiences, composed of 
French " ladies and gentlemen." It is not strange 
that the half-civilized blacks should have aimed at 
retributive cruelty, of which many instances might be 
cited; but one will suffice. The wife of Toussaint's 
brother, Paul, having been drowned by the French, 
and without reason, except from insensate revenge, 
he became mad from grief, and the innocent passen- 
gers of a French ship that was wrecked on the coast 
falling into his hands, he slaughtered them all in front 
of the city gate, " to the manes of his beloved part- 
ner! " 

But the time came when Bonaparte could no 
longer send re-enforcements to fill the gaps death had 
caused in the ranks of his soldiers so far distant from 
France. Owing to the breaking out of war between 
England and France in November, 1803, British 
ships came to blockade Roehambeau at the Cape; and 
he was hemmed in between white and black foes. 
Even then he clung to the hope of rescue, and held 
out until all his provisions were consumed. Garrison 
and citizens were reduced to eating horse and mule 
meat, even the very dogs that had been imported to 
capture and maim the blacks were killed and eaten! 
The outer works were carried by the islanders, and 
they began to prepare hot shot to sink the ships. 
Then Roehambeau, making a virtue of necessity, sur- 
rendered to the British, who thus snatched eight thou- 
sand prisoners of war from the very fangs of the rag- 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 173 

ing, vengeful Dessalines. There is no doubt as to 
what their fate would have been had this monster 
griped them, as exemplified in his massacres of the 
defenseless French who were left behind. 

"As they sailed from the island, Rochambeau and 
his soldiers saw the tops of the mountains aglow with 
fires. Aforetime the blaze had been kindled for war 
and devastation; now the blacks lighted up the high- 
lands in token of their joy. Freedom had been 
wrested out of the hands of their foes. The dark 
past was wholly gone; the future was radiant with 
hope. i Freedom! Freedom! ' ran in joyous echoes 
from mountain top to mountain top, till the whole 
island shouted ' Freedom! ' Thus ended that deplor- 
able expedition. In less than two years sixty thou- 
sand persons had fallen; fifteen hundred were offi- 
cers of superior rank, eight hundred were medical 
men who had given their lives, thirty-three thousand 
soldiers, of whom not a sixth perished in battle. The 
attempt at subjugation cost the blacks more than 
twelve thousand men. of whom about four thousand 
found death at the hands of executioners." 

On the departure of the French the negro chiefs 
again proclaimed the independence of the island " in 
the name of the black people and men of color," and 
on the first day of January, 1804, they and the gen- 
erals of the army, in the name of the people, took 
a solemn oath to renounce France forever, and to 
die rather than submit to her domination. But the 
Haitians had acquired neither freedom nor liberty; 
only a change of masters! 

Jean Jacques Dessalines was named governor 



171 



Til K STORIED WEST INDIES 



genera] for life, with power to enact laws, to declare 
peace <>r war, and to nominate his successor. No 
sooner was lie firmly seated than, despite his promises 
and proclamations to the contrary, he proceeded to 
wreak Ids vengeance on the lew French remaining, 
and nearly all were murdered. Says an unfortunate 
resident of the ( !ape at that time: tk That night | the 
20th of April, lso I | was a veritable night of hor 
rors. At short intervals we could hear the ax and 
pick thundering at the door of some devoted neighbor 
and soon forcing it. Piercing shrieks immediately 

ensued, followed by ;i inosl. expressive silence. The 

next moment the military party were proceeding to 
some oilier house, there to renew their work of 
death. 

1 There w;is one act in this terrible tragedy which 
stamps llie conduct of the monster Dessalines with 
the character <d" most flagrant perfidy as well as of 
cruelty, lie had not been able to find all his pur- 
posed victims, and so issued an announcement that 
his vengeance was satisfied, ;ind that if those who 
remained would appear on the parade grounds on 
:i certain day they would receive tickets that would 
insure them perfect security. Depending upon this 
offer of amnesty they came forth tremblingly from 
their hiding places, and appeared as directed, but 

had no SOOner done so than they were seized and 

led to execution. 'The slaughter was terrible, and 
the rivulet which runs through the town was literally 
rod with their blood! " 

In a bombastic proclamation Dessalines claimed 
all the " glory " of this infamous deed; " At length/' 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 175 

be said, " the hour of vengeance has arrived, and the 
implacable enemies of the rights of man have suf- 
fered the punishment due to their crimes! . . . 5Tes, 
we have rendered to those real cannibals war for war, 
crime for crime, outrage for outrage. V'--. I bave 
saved my country; I have avenged America- The 
avowal I make, in the face of earth and heaven, con- 
stitutes my pride and glory! " 

After a futile expedition into Santo Domingo, 
lie returned and ordered a revision of the constitu- 
tion, by which this u avenger and deliverer of his 
fellow-citizens " was created a first magistrate, to 
be called " His Majesty the Emperor," and his " au- 
gust spouse " (the former mistress of a French 
planter) was declared " Empress." A constitution 
was proclaimed; all properties of the whites were de- 
clared confiscated to the state; labor was nol compul- 
sory, and Haiti became the negroes' paradise. De 
lines was the first black emperor in America, and, 
like many another American, Ik- could " point with 
pride" to the fact that he was self-made. At the 
outbreak of the insurrection that made him promi- 
nent be was slave to a negro named Dessalines, and 
known merely as Jean Jacques. After he rose to 
the throne he sought out his old master and made 
him chief butler to his Majesty. WTien asked if lie 
could not have given him a position more honor- 
able, the emperor replied, " 5Tes, but nothing the old 
man would have liked so well; for, while f have a 
good cellar, yet I drink nothing but water; and he 
can drink for ns both! " The emperor never learned 
to read, but could sign his name after a fashion. He 



17G THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

employed a reader, however, and used to listen atten- 
tively to such papers as were read to him, among 
them Wilberforce's speeches against the slave trade. 
He was fond of dress and ornament, and always took 
a dancing master about with him, though he was 
very awkward at an accomplishment in which most 
blacks are so graceful. His reign was short-lived 
after all, for his troops conspired against him in 
L806, and cut him down while struggling to escape; 
and though he had stipulated that "such children as 
should be acknowledged by his Majesty " should be 
known as " princes of the blood/' none of them 
ever appeared to claim a right to the throne. 

The second ruler over free Haiti was also a black 
man, the redoubtable Henry Christophe, who had 
set fire to the Cape when the French fleet first ap- 
peared. He was a man of great military skill, brave 
and determined, as all liis acts have shown. Created 
" President and ( Jeneralissimo of the Military and 
Naval Forces of the State of Haiti," it was declared 
by the new constitution that all other titles for the 
supreme executive were forever proscribed; yet in 
181 l he was proclaimed king, under the name of 
Henry I, and his consort queen. Then were en- 
acted over again the buffoonery and burlesque of 
royalty that had excited the ridicule of the world dur- 
ing the previous " reign." With the establishment of 
the throne, the council of state decreed that there 
should be not only an " hereditary monarchy," but 
also an "hereditary nobility" as well, composed of 
all such distinguished persons as had rendered im- 
portant services to their country, either in the magis- 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS Iff 

tracy or the army, or in the departments of litera- 
ture and science. In literature or science it would 
be hard to find, even at this day, any Haitian who 
has distinguished himself; but the army supplied an 
abundance of material for the " nobility/' and the 
list includes, besides the " princes of the blood,' 7 three 
" princes of the kingdom," eight dukes, twenty 
counts, thirty-seven barons, and eleven chevaliers. 
Then there were the " knights of Saint Henry," 
and the first secretary of state was Comte de Limon- 
ade, another high officer being styled the Due de Mar- 
malade. The Comte de Limonade was " gifted with 
the pen," and wrote many reams of fulsome procla- 
mations for the edification of a waiting world. Here 
is one of them, sent forth in the name of " King 
Henry " : 

" Free by right, and independent in fact, we will 
never, no, never, renounce the blessings of liberty; 
no, never will we consent to witness the subversion 
of the edifice we have raised and cemented with our 
blood; at least, without being buried beneath its 
ruins. . . . King of a free people, a soldier by pro- 
fession, we fear no war nor enemy. . . . We sol- 
emnly declare that we will never become a party to 
any treaty, or any condition, that shall compromise 
the honor, the liberty, or the independence; of the 
Haitian people. Faithful to our oath, we will rather 
bury ourselves beneath the ruins of our country than 
suffer the smallest infringement of our political 
rights. 

(liven at our palace of Sans Souci the 18th of 



a /"< 



178 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

September, 1814, in the eleventh year of independ- 
ence, and the fourth of our reign. 

" (Signed) Henry. 
" (By the King) The Comte de Limonade, 
"•Secretary of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs." 

King Henry possessed nine royal palaces and 
eight royal chateaux, of which the Palais de Sans 
Souci and the Chateau cles Delices de la Reine were 
the most beautiful. He carried out Dessalines's plan 
of defense adopted in the event of another invasion 
by France. They had sufficient grounds for appre- 
hending that the French would return to avenge 
their atrocious massacres, in which event they re- 
solved to abandon the coast at the first sign of the 
enemy, and retreat to forts built in very strong posi- 
tions in the interior. All the captured artillery, 
which consisted chiefly of brass cannon in great abun- 
dance, was removed to these hill forts, where vast 
magazines of provisions and ammunition were also 
collected. The lateral hills and the ravines intersect- 
ing them were all cleared and planted with bananas, 
yams, plantains, and other quick-growing plants pro- 
ducing edible fruits and tubers; water was also pro- 
vided in cisterns and by means of aqueducts: so that 
the blacks could have held out for an indefinite 
period, provisioned and intrenched as they were, in 
these almost impregnable fastnesses. 

Towering above the hill ranges back of Cape 
Haitien, the visitor to that port may see a pyramidal 
mountain, cloud-wreathed and lofty: the far-famed 
La Ferriere, which is crowned by a fortress. I 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 



179 



once visited this vast fortress and the mined palace 
of Sans Souci, which are respectively four and two 
hours' ride from the Cape. Both were built by 
orders of Christophe when he held the lives of his 
sable subjects as of little account, and if he had pos- 
sessed all the resources of modern civilization, I do 




A court in Sans Souci. 



not believe that either the stern majesty of the one 
or the perfect beauty of the other could have been 
exceeded. Crowning the leveled summit of a conical 
hill, steep and hard to climb, the massive walls of the 
fortress tower aloft to the height of a hundred feet, 
surrounded by a wide and deep moat spanned by a 
decaying drawbridge. Inside are vast galleries, one 
above another, in which are still mounted more than 



180 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

two hundred cannon; for Christophe was determined 
to construct a stronghold in this wilderness which 
would withstand the attack of any enemy, even of 
the great Napoleon. No attack was ever made upon 
this great fortress, and it stands silent to-day, as it 
has been since its construction. The hundreds of 
grim cannon and mortars, however, are witnesses to 
the sanguinary struggle that might have occurred 
had a foreign foe again invaded the soil of Haiti. 

In a most beautiful valley under the hills are 
the remains of the Palais de Sans Souci, where 
Haiti's first king held his court, and which was his 
favorite place of residence. Here the roofless walls, 
the choked fountains, the dimensions of vast halls, 
the outbuildings and gardens overgrown with tropi- 
cal plants, give evidence of the grandeur that once 
waited on this savage sovereign. The view from the 
esplanade is entrancing: over a vale filled with plants 
of the tropics, the gardens and thatched huts of the 
African natives. After his stronghold was com- 
pleted, Christophe removed thither with all his treas- 
ure, estimated at thirty million dollars, and there felt 
so secure that, according to tradition, he defied even 
the Almighty, one day during a thunderstorm dis- 
charging his artillery to the din of the elements and 
flashes of lightning. Within the fortress quadrangle 
his dilapidated tomb is shown; and in the palace a 
room where, at the approach of his mutinous guard, 
he bade farewell to his family, and shot himself 
through the head with a silver bullet. 

Thus much for Christophe, that savage spirit, that 
acute intelligence, that whirlwind of the insurrec- 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 181 

tion; the first great sovereign the blacks of America 
ever had to rule as a despot and reign like a king. 
He left no descendants to rule in his stead; but one 
day, as I was crossing a plain near Cape Haitien, I saw 
the last representative of his " nobility." Mounted 
upon a small and bony steed was a black man clad 
in faded regimentals, tattered and torn, with an enor- 
mous cocked hat on his woolly head and two great 
spurs strapped to his naked heels. " That, sir," said 
my guide, " is the Comte de Limonade ! " Not the 
original one, to be sure, but the present heir to title 
and estates. 

Equally impoverished are the present residents of 
the city which was built by the French, burned by 
Christophe, and where resided Leclerc and Pauline 
Bonaparte when the plague carried off the flower of 
France's soldiery — Cape Haitien, formerly Cape 
Francais, and once so gay that it was called the 
" Paris of the West Indies." It is now a wretched 
ruin, possessing only the remains of former great- 
ness, and without a single suggestion of any art or 
architecture originating with the blacks. The same 
may be said of Haiti at large. Nothing, absolutely 
nothing, has she to show for her century of freedom 
except the degenerate descendants of those who won 
it. Idle, apathetic, without ambition, immoral to 
the core, both in civil life and in politics, the Haitians 
have not improved their opportunities to show the 
world what the black man might do when free and 
independent. 

Christophe killed himself in 1820. His " king- 
dom " comprised only the northern portion of the 



182 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



island, and his subjects consisted mainly of blacks. 
His great rival, with whom he was for years at war, 
was General Petion, a mulatto, whose capital was at 
Port au Prince, and who was invested with the title 
of president of the mulatto republic, which he held 
until he died, in 1818. He was succeeded by Boyer, 
another mulatto educated in Paris, who had also 
come over with Leclerc, and whose father was a 
tailor, his mother a Congo negress. He availed him- 
self of the confusion 
consequent upon 
Christophe's death 
and invaded the 
north, where he was 
well received. In 
1822 he was impor- 
tuned by the Span- 
iards of the eastern 
part to make a peace- 
ful entry into their 
capital; and thus the 
whole island, for the 
first time in its his- 
tory, was united 
under one govern- 
ment, in which it con- 
tinued until Boyer's 
deposition, in 1843. 
After him came several rulers of no special im- 
portance, all as nominal presidents, until in 1847 
one Soulouque, a superstitious and illiterate adherent 
of the voodoo, or serpent worshipers, declared him- 





King Henry I, of Haiti. 



BLACK KINGS AND EMPERORS 183 

self emperor under the title of " Faustin I." He 
revived the old " nobility " of the Limonades and 
Marmalades; but finally Faustin I became the laugh- 
ingstock of the civilized world, and even degenerate 
Haiti was forced to repudiate him. A rebellion was 
successfully raised by one Geffrard, who followed 
him a few years later to Jamaica as an exile, both, 
it was declared, having plundered the island of mil- 
lions. Salnave, the black soldier, who succeeded the 
mulatto Geffrard as " president," was shot in the 
doorway of the national palace by order of his suc- 
cessor, Saget. 

Thus they followed each other, these self-elected 
" presidents " of hapless Haiti, mulattoes and blacks 
alternating, the last, who imitated Christophe in all 
but his affectations of royalty, being Hyppolite. He 
massacred hundreds of people on his road to the pal- 
ace in 1891, and died in 1897, being succeeded by a 
" compromise candidate," President-General Sam, 
also a black man, who reigns in 1900. 

The status of Haiti is probably lower than that 
of any other power in the community of nations. 
Its people have created absolutely nothing, to fill the 
place of what they have so ruthlessly destroyed, they 
have added nothing whatever to the sum of this 
century's worthy achievements. 



CHAPTER XV 

SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 

Santo Domingo was the " mother colony " of 
the West Indies for many years, and from the island 
went out the various bands of conquistadores who 
settled Cuba, Puerto Pico, and Jamaica. In the year 
1508, acting under orders from the governor of Santo 
Domingo, Sebastian de Ocampo sailed completely 
around Cuba, thus for the first time demonstrating 
that it was an island. He made many interesting 
discoveries, careened his vessels in the port since 
known as Havana, and at Cienfuegos, on the south 
coast, traded with the natives. Of his visit to Cien- 
fuegos Herrera says : " There was Ocampo, very 
much at his ease, well served by the Indians with an 
infinite number of partridges like those of Castile, 
but smaller; and also an abundance of fish called 
' lizas,' which were taken from a natural fish pond, 
where there were millions of them, just as safe as 
if they were in a tank attached to one's house." 

The honor of making the first settlements in Cuba 
belongs to Don Diego Velasquez, who was created 
adelantado, and who sailed from the city of Santo 
Domingo in November , 1511, with four vessels and 
three hundred men. Among those in his company 
was one who became more famous than the adelan- 
184 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 



185 



tado — no less a personage than Hernan Cortes, who 
had come out to the island a young man, and who had 
been assigned a repartimiento of Indians on the south 
coast, at or near the present port of Azua, in Ana- 
caona's country. 




A cartmau of Cuba. 



Velasquez first landed at the port of Las Palmas, 
situated between Guantanamo and Escondido, on the 
south coast of Cuba; but the first town founded was 
that of Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion, now known 
as Baracoa, to the northwest of Cape Maysi, early in 
1512. He intended this to become the capital of the 
island, and appointed civil and ecclesiastical officers; 



SI I 



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188 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

cidents of the siege of Santiago in 1898 was that some 
of the American battle ships which threw shot and 
shell into the city and harbor were belted with plates 
made from iron out of Santiago's mines! 

Although the entrance to Santiago harbor is so 
obscure as almost to merit the name bestowed upon 
another near, of Escondido, or Hidden, yet it was 
soon found by Spain's enemies, and many a naval en- 
gagement has been f ought within. A fierce fight, 
which was continued for two days, took place in 1537 
between a Spanish vessel and a French privateer that 
had arrived in the bay. Each day they fought and 
each night the respective commanders ceased firing 
and exchanged courtesies. In the morning at sun- 
rise the combat was resumed, but without any result 
until the third night, when the privateer gave up 
the fight and crawled out of the harbor. 

In 1553 the city was captured by four hundred 
French arquebusiers, who held it for a month, until 
a ransom of eighty thousand dollars was paid. As 
late as 1592 piratical attacks were so frequent that 
the inhabitants were often obliged to seek refuge in 
Bayamo, some distance in the interior. Until near 
the end of that century, Santiago was held to be the 
capital of Cuba, but when, in 1608, the cathedral 
was ruined by an earthquake, the bishop removed 
to Havana and carried his authority with him. In 
the quarrel that ensued the bishop had the captain 
general excommunicated, and all the clergy of the 
city went in procession to curse him and to stone his 
house. Two hundred years later, in 1810, a marble 
slab was taken from the ruins of the ancient cathe- 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 189 

dral bearing an inscription to the effect that the 
remains of Don Diego Velasquez, the first explorer 
and conqueror of Cuba, were bnried there. This fact 
revived the stories current at one time of his cruelty, 
when the poor Indians were slaughtered by him and 
his companions without mercy. They soon went 
the way of those in Haiti; whole companies of them 
committed suicide to escape the tortures of the Span- 
iards, and hundreds of them were massacred without 
cause. 

During the frequent wars between Spain and 
England the latter power always sent her war ships 
to the West Indies and to Cuba as offering vulner- 
able points of attack, and thus the poor colonists were 
made the victims of their home country's policy. In 
1662, for example, the English, under Lord Winsor, 
attacked Santiago, landed eight hundred men at 
Aguadores, marched upon and took the city, carried 
off church bells, treasure, slaves, guns from the forts, 
and blew up the Morro itself, hitherto considered 
impregnable. It was rebuilt, however, in 1663, and 
at the same time supplemented by the forts and bat- 
teries of Santa Catalina, La Punta, and La Estrella, 
all which were vainly bombarded by the Americans 
in 1898. 

With all these evidences of Santiago's antiquity 
before us it does not seem improbable that, as the 
story goes, the ribs of a galleon which once sailed 
with Spain's mighty armada lie at the bottom of its 
harbor. How they got there no one seems to know; 
but it is certain that Sir Francis Drake, who bore so 
conspicuous a part in defeating that armada in 1588, 



190 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

was frequently prowling about in these waters. He 
lost a ship to a Spanish admiral off the Isle of Pines 
in a notable encounter, and the Cubans were con- 
stantly in dread of his coming. 

We shall present in briefest outline only the 
great events which have so recently happened here, 
because so many pens of late have made them famil- 
iar to all. It should be recalled, however, that Santi- 
ago was the " storm center " of the war that ended 
in the expulsion of Spain forever from American 
waters, and wrested from her the colonies she had 
founded in the sixteenth century. Citizens of the 
United States have been several times involved in 
Cuban uprisings as individuals, without the sanction 
of their Government, and notably in what is known 
as the " Virginius affair," in 1873. The Virginius 
was an American ship which sailed clandestinely to 
the aid of the Cubans, and was taken on the high 
seas off Jamaica by a Spanish man-of-war. She 
was brought to Santiago, and within a few days her 
master, Captain Fry, and forty-eight of her crew 
and passengers were summarily shot. This barbar- 
ous proceeding aroused even the lethargic United 
States, and diplomatic intercourse between our coun- 
try and Spain was on the point of rupture, when the 
Spanish Government made a tardy disavowal of the 
whole affair, promised to restore the ship to its 
owners, and to salute our flag if in the wrong. It 
was found to be morally wrong, though technically 
within its international rights, and the salute was dis- 
pensed with. The Virginius was taken away in 
charge of an American crew, but in such a filthy and 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 191 

unseaworthy condition that there was great relief 
when she foundered off our coast before reaching 
port. 

It was charged at the time that our Government 
had ordered her scuttled at sea to avoid international 
complications; but I can state, from my own experi- 
ence, that, whether or not this was true, the storm 
which prevailed the night she went down was suffi- 
cient to sink any ordinary craft, short-handed as she 
was, for I happened to be within its radius (and if the 
weather had been clear should have been within 
sight of the ship) when she sank. This occurrence 
made an indelible impression upon my memory, and 
it was with sad interest that, years afterward, I 
viewed the dead wall of the slaughter house against 
which those unfortunate men of the Yirginius were 
stood up to be shot, in the city of Santiago. 

Provided such a deed must needs be avenged, then 
it has been requited, and by Americans; for it was 
here that Spain was reduced, at one fell swoop, to a 
third-rate power, by the victories won by our soldiers 
and sailors in June and July, 1898. 

After war was declared between the United 
States and Spain in April, 1898, two months of hur- 
ried preparations ensued, and it was not known at 
what point troops or ships would come into collision. 
The sailing of Admiral Cervera's fleet from the Cape 
de Yerde Islands for the West Indies left our nation 
in suspense for weeks, as it was not known what por- 
tion of our coast might be the object of attack. 
When, finally, word came that the fleet had taken 
coal at Curacao, the country breathed more freely, 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 193 

since it was then seen that the Spanish objective was 
probably Cuba or Puerto Rico, and the coast of our 
mainland was at least safe for the time. The two 
American fleets that had been assembled, the one 
engaged in the blockade of Havana under Admiral 
Sampson and the flying squadron at Newport Xews 
under Schley, were ordered to converge in the chan- 
nel south of Cuba; but it was not until much valu- 
able time had been wasted that the mystery of Cer- 
vera's movements was penetrated by a daring recon- 
noissance, which disclosed his fleet safely ensconced 
in Santiago's harbor. 

To brave Lieutenant Blue belongs the honor of 
this achievement, and, now in full confidence that 
the enemy would be captured in time, our war ships 
assembled off the harbor mouth within sight and shot 
of grim old Morro. This act of Cervera's, in seeking 
shelter at a Spanish port, when he might easily have 
ravaged some portion of our Continental coast, at once 
determined the theater of war. All our energies 
were devoted to concentrating troops and war ships 
at this point, and before the last of June the battles 
of £1 Caney and Las Guasimas had been fought, the 
storming of San Juan Hill had proved the valor of 
our soldiers, and Santiago itself had been invested. 
Then followed Cervera's desperate dash for liberty 
from the harbor of Santiago, and the swift demoli- 
tion of his gallant ships by the watchful Yankees 
off the harbor entrance. By the destruction of this 
fleet of Spanish war ships, the second naval victory 
of the war was won by the Americans (the first 
being that of Manila; with the loss of but a single 



I'M 



THE STOIMKI) WUST IN Dl MS 



man. Shattered and smoking wrecks upon the ( Juban 
coast, lay the flower of Spain's navy, and one of her 
most gallant admirals, together with hundreds of her 
sailors, were our prisoners. All this occurred <»n the 
3d of July, and it was a most memorable tc Fourth" 
that was celebrated in the year L898, when the 
rumors were confirmed of the total destruction of the 
Spanish fleet. 

The liill <>l Santiago followed, as a matter of 
course, on the L7th of July, and all the eastern prov- 
ince came into our possession. A.ccording to the terms 
<>l capitulation, the twenty thousand soldiers com- 
prising the garrisons were repatriated at our expense; 
but still there were more than a hundred thousand 
Spanish fighting men on Cuban soil, and the work of 

expulsion w;is considered to have just begun. The 

genius of the United States was now thoroughly 
aroused, but had hardly put forth its energies when 
we were astounded by a proposition from Spain for 
the cessation of hostilities. 

So it is around Santiago that associations now 
cluster which have become interwoven with our coun- 
try's history. Down by the water side is the stark 

Willi where the men of the Virginius met their doom; 

not far distant is the harbor mouth where Lieu- 
tenant Hobson and his seven companions s:mk the 
Merriimic and won undying fame; over the hills are 
the heights of San Juan and El Caney, where Ameri- 
can soldiers wiped out whatever slain of Mood may 
have been imprinted upon their flag in years gone 
by. For many years Americans had been 8'ubjected 
to insult and conl umely at the hands of the arrogant 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA [05 

Spaniards; but when once they sprang to arms, in 
a single, short campaign they not only caused the 
downfall of Santiago and the Mx>rro> but sent Spain 
herself tottering to her fall. 

The final blow wan dealt at Santiago, and with 
the surrender of that city and province passed the 
virtual possession of the island to the Americans; for 
Havana, though girdled with fori- and castled for 
tresses, and the headquarters of a captain general 
in command of more than a hundred thousand men, 
came to ii- without tin; firing of another gun. 

Tin: name of Havana was first applied to the 
present port of Batabano, on the south coast of 
Cuba, which was founded in 1511. but transferred to 
the north coast in 1519. The landing place of the 
first colonists is to-day indicated by a small chapel, 
and a .-/-ion of the original ceiba tree beneath which 
the event was celebrated. Ships sailing between 

Spain and Mexico -oon after touched here, and from 

it- commanding situation and superexcellent harbor 
it came to be called "The K<-y of the New World." 
Commerce quickly found it out, and also those para- 
sites of commerce, tin- buccaneers, who as early as 
L528 sacked and burned the city. On account of its 
value, the King of Spain ordered two great castles 
built, as a protection to the town, and work wa* begun 
ai once upon the Bateria do la Punta and the Morro, 
under a celebrated Italian engineer. These impor- 
tant fortifications, which command the harbor en- 
trance on either side, may -till be seen; but though 
begun more than three hundred and sixty years ago, 



196 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

they were still in an unfinished state when threatened 
by Drake in 1585. His advent again, in 1592, hur- 
ried these slow-moving Spaniards somewhat; but in 
1628, when the city was attacked by Dutch pirates, 
the forts were far from being completed. 

In addition to being constantly the object of 
attacks from Spain's enemies, Havana also suffered 
severely from hurricanes and fires in later years, as 
in 1768, 1802, 1810, and 1846. On the 10th of 
October, 1846, the island was swept by the most vio- 
lent hurricane ever known in its history, eighteen 
thousand dwellings being destroyed — five thousand 
five hundred in Havana alone. A vast territory was 
ravaged, more than one hundred coasting vessels were 
wrecked, and hundreds of people were killed. Again, 
about twenty years later, the island and city were 
storm swept, with great loss of life and shipping; yet 
Havana has survived all the attacks of buccaneers, 
pirates, filibusters, fire, and hurricane, and when it 
passed from Spanish to American hands, in 1898, 
was one of the finest cities in tropical America. 

In a review of the many great events that have 
taken place here, we should not lose sight of two ex- 
peditions made to Florida — by Pamphilo de Narvaez 
in 1528, and by Ferdinand de Soto in 1539. De Soto 
was, as is well known, governor general of Cuba at 
the time he fitted out his ill-starred expedition to 
Florida, and it was from the harbor of Havana that 
he sailed forth on the voyage that ended in the dis- 
covery of the Mississippi and his burial beneath its 
waters. Hither, it is thought, was brought Ponce de 
Leon in 1521, wounded by an arrow from the bow 




Havana in the seventeenth century. 



198 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

of a Floridian, and here he died. Though politically 
separated for years, yet many traditions of Cuba and 
Florida have been common to both, through the ad- 
ventures of Spaniards in the sixteenth century. 

Though many times menaced, Havana had re- 
mained essentially a Spanish possession until the clos- 
ing years of the present century. In 1534, and again 
in 1554, it was taken by the French; in 1624 by the 
Dutch ; but each time was restored to Spain. Its most 
critical period was in the last quarter of the eight- 
eenth century, when the English assailed Spain's 
holdings in the West Indies with the intention of 
permanent occupancy. Had Great Britain carried 
out her diplomatic schemes of that time, doubtless 
the history of the Western Hemisphere would have 
been radically different from that which we know; 
but she has always acted in a half-hearted manner 
with respect to the West Indies, and though she has 
expended vast treasure and shed British blood with- 
out stint, yet her possessions there to-day are com- 
paratively insignificant. Not alone British, but 
American blood, has been spilled in Britain's attempts 
to humble Spain through the conquest of her Cuban 
colony; indeed, it cost our colonies thirty thousand 
men, as well as sixteen million dollars, to take Havana 
in 1762. That midsummer expedition, by which the 
English under Lord Albemarle invested Havana and 
finally captured it, was the second attempt of the 
kind undertaken with the assistance of eminent 
Americans. In the first, which was futile, twenty 
years earlier, a brother of George Washington, 
Major Lawrence, was engaged; and he afterward 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 199 

named, in honor of the commander of that expedi- 
tion, the famous Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon, 
which later came into the possession of our honored 
first president. 

The second siege was the event of the century in 
the West Indies, and ended, after almost incredible 
suffering on the part of the besiegers, in the fall 
of the forts and the capture of the city. As in the 
more recent occupation of the Cuban capital by the 
military forces of the United States, British occu- 
pancy resulted most favorably for the Havanese, for 
the city was cleansed of its impurities, the ravages of 
the endemic fevers were checked, and commerce, un- 
restricted by arbitrary laws, swelled to unwonted 
proportions. 

The next year England gave up her dearly 
bought possession in exchange for Florida, and it 1 
has come about that, in the providence of God, the 
blood of the American colonists was not shed in vain 
after all; for one hundred and twenty-six years later 
their descendants marched into Havana without 
the direct loss of a life or the firing of a gun. Before 
the end of December, 1898, the island had been 
cleared of Spanish troops, and all its provinces, cities, 
towns, and forts were in American hands, to be held 
in trust for the Cubans until a stable government 
should be established. 

The loss to Spain of a colony which had been 
hers for four hundred years impels us to seek a 
reason for this momentous event. In a word, it was 
cruelty. From the very first the Spaniards treated 
their American subjects with unprecedented sever- 



SANTIAGO AND HAVANA 201 

ity: at the outset the unfortunate Indians, then their 
successors the native-born settlers. All the West 
Indian islands, particularly Cuba and Puerto Rico, 
have been considered merely fields for the exer- 
cise of official rapacity and extortion, treated as con- 
quered provinces. The result has been a condition 
of unrest, which has shown itself in numerous re- 
bellions and filibustering expeditions. The most ex- 
tensive rebellion was that known as the " Ten Years' 
War " (1868-'78), and which, after terrible cruelties 
had been perpetrated, was brought to an end by a 
treaty, which was perfidiously violated by Spain. 
The Cubans did not obtain those concessions to 
which their valor had entitled them, and seven- 
teen years later, in 1895, inevitable war again broke 
out and ravaged the island. The leaders were 
Gomez, Garcia, and Maceo, and they pursued the 
same tactics as in the previous war, rarely coming 
to close quarters with the enemy, but carrying on a 
guerrilla warfare. They obtained no great successes 
in the field, but had driven the Spaniards mainly 
within the shelter of a few forts and cities. 
" Butcher Weyler " was carrying on his barbarous 
policy of extermination by causing the reconcentrados 
to starve in the settlements. This state of affairs 
might have lasted for years had not a crisis occurred. 
That crisis in Cuban affairs was the blowing up of 
the United States battle ship Maine in the harbor of 
Havana — a dastardly massacre of two hundred and 
sixty American officers and sailors. It was the wreck 
of the Maine that caused the total collapse of Spanish 
hopes in Cuba; for the intervention of the United 



202 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



States, and that short though bloody campaign in the 
summer of 1898, drove the Spaniards from the island 
which for centuries had bled beneath their merciless 

oppressions. Not 
long before a Span- 
ish premier had de- 
clared that there was 
not money enough 
in the United States 
to purchase Cuba, 
nor power enough to 
take her; yet within 
one hundred days 
from the declaration 
of war she was in 
American hands, and 
the first day of Janu- 
ary, 1899, saw the 
last of Spanish sol- 
diers on this side of 
the Atlantic. 

The month of 
July, 1898, was a 
memorable one to 
Cuba, for then she 
realized the aims for which she had fought many 
years; to Spain, also, for then ceased her dominion 
in the West Indies; to the United States, for then 
was proved the valor of her soldiers and her mag- 
nanimity as a nation. 




A fair Havanese. 



CHAPTER XYI 

JAMAICA ABD THE MAKOONS 

Jamaica, like Cuba and Haiti, retain? its aborigi- 
nal name, which, signifies a land of springs, or of 
woods and waters. It is a land of mountains also, 
the highest, or Blue Mountain Peak, reaching an 
altitude of more than seven thousand feet. The 
island was discovered by Columbus on his second voy- 
age, in 1494, but is more particularly identified with 
his fourth, and last, which extended from 1502 to 
1504, and was the most disastrous of all. AVe have 
noted that Columbus touched at Hispaniola on this 
voyage, where he warned the governor of an ap- 
proaching hurricane : that his advice was disregarded, 
BobadUla's fleet being wrecked in the storm: and 
that his own little squadron was in great danger on 
the south coast of that island. Having been forbid- 
den to land anywhere on the coast of Hispaniola, 
Columbus steered for Veragua. where, after re- 
peated failures to found a settlement, he at last 
was driven by a great storm to the south coast of 
Cuba, whence, with his vessels in a shattered and 
sinking condition, he sought the north shore of Ja- 
maica. This north coast has many good harbors, and 
into one of these, which he called Porto Bueno. he 
sailed with his sinking ships. A little later, with- 
15 203 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 205 

drawing his craft from this harbor, he entered a small 
bay and ran them ashore on the sands, where he was 
kept a prisoner for more than a year by the com- 
bined forces of the elements and the hostile natives. 
The bay in which he stranded his vessels is still 
known as Don Christopher's Cove, and one day I 
visited and photographed the scene of this the sad- 
dest episode in the life of Columbus. 

Running the vessels upon the shore, Columbus 
propped them in an upright position, then built a 
thatched roof over the decks, and thus " castled in 
the sea," as he terms it, he remained in this spot a 
long and weary twelvemonth. At first the Indians, 
who were allied to those of Haiti but more fierce 
and warlike, were inclined to pity his misfortunes 
and supply him with fresh provisions; but at last 
they became rebellious and refused longer to render 
assistance. Then it was, if we may believe the ac- 
counts transmitted to us, that he gained by artifice 
what he could not obtain by force or entreaties. He 
knew from his calculations that an eclipse of the 
moon was soon to occur, and he employed this knowl- 
edge to impress the Indians with an idea of his im- 
portance. He told the chief that he had control 
over the celestial bodies, and that if his supplies 
were not renewed at once he would remove the 
light of the moon forever from the island. The In- 
dians scoffed at this threat, but when at the time 
mentioned the moon's glory was obscured they came 
and entreated him to cause the Queen of Night to re- 
turn to her place in the heavens. As they promised 
to give the Spaniards all the supplies they needed, 



206 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Columbus pretended to relent, and after retiring to 
his cabin came forth and assured them that their 
prayers had been answered, and all would be well 
again if they fulfilled their agreement. This they 
gladly did, and thenceforth there was no danger 
from famine. But another danger threatened in the 
revolt of a portion of the crew, under two brothers 
named Porras, who led their followers off to ravage 
and destroy. 

A brave young Spaniard, Diego Mendez, volun- 
teered to go in a canoe to Hispaniola and apprise the 
governor of their perilous position, and this he suc- 
ceded in doing, after terrible exposure in crossing 
the channel; but the vile Ovando purposely withheld 
succor from his imperilled countrymen for nearly a 
year, and meanwhile Columbus despaired of being 
rescued. It was while thus a prisoner, and in sus- 
pense, that he wrote a last appeal to his sovereigns, in 
a letter dated Jamaica, 1504. It begins: " Diego 
Mendez, and the papers I send by him, will show your 
Highnesses what rich mines of gold I have discovered 
in Veragua, and how I intended to have left my 
brother at the river Belen if the judgments of 
Heaven and the greatest misfortunes in the world 
had not prevented it. However, it is sufficient that 
your Highnesses and your successors will have the 
glory and advantages of it all, and that the full 
discovery and settlement are reserved for happier 
persons than the unfortunate Columbus. If God 
be so merciful as to conduct Mendez to Spain, 1 
doubt not but he will convince your Highness 
and my great Mistress that this will not only be a 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 207 

stile and Leon, but a discovery of a world of 
subjects, lands, and wealth greater than man's un- 
bounded fancy could ever comprehend or avarice 
itself covet; but neither he, this paper, nor the tongue 

of mortal man can express the anguish and afflic- 
tions of my body and mind, nor the mi -cry and dan- 
gers of my son. brother, and friends. Already :. 
we been confined ten months in this place, lodged on 
the open decks of our ships that are run ashore and 
lashed together: those of my men that were in health 
have mutinied under the Porrases of Seville; my 
friends that were faithful are mostly sick and dying; 

have consumed the Indians' provisions - that 
they abandon us; all, therefore, are likely to perish of 
hunger, and these miseries are accompanied by so 
many aggravating cireumsti - that render me the 
st wretched object of mi -fortune this world shall 
see: as if the displeasure of Heavei tided 

the envy of Spain, and would punish as criminal 
those undertakings which former ages would : 
acknc s - _ 3at and meritorious actions! " 

These repinings of Columbi - wei e born of his 
well-founded distrust of both King Ferdinand and 
the governor of Hispanolia: yet his undaunted spirit 
still held to the glory of his great discoveries, which 
the world has since confirmed and aokr. ged in 

full measure. 

Columbus - al last - r rd by a party grudg- 
ingly sent out by Dvando, who purposely dela; 
hoping that meanwhile the shipwrecked mar' 

with of honor at 

EGspaniola, and seni fcc Spain, where he arrived only 



208 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

to learn of the last illness and death of Queen Isa- 
bella, his sole friend at court. 

Columbus never made another voyage, being 
slighted and contemptuously treated by King Ferdi- 
nand, and died two years later, in 1506. Even the 
empty titles which were promised him by his sover- 
eigns were withheld from his family, until finally 
Don Diego, his son, wrested them from Ferdinand 
by legal process; and years later his grandson, Don 
Luis, received the title of Due cle Yeragua and Mar- 
quis de la Yega — the one from the region discov- 
ered on that last voyage, the other from another 
province in the island of Jamaica, where the second 
city was founded. 

It was in 1503 that Columbus underwent that 
terrible experience in Jamaica, but not until twenty 
years later, or in 1523, was the first settlement 
founded there by the Spaniards. That year a city 
was begun near Santa Gloria, now Saint Ann's, and 
called Sevilla Nueva. In a few years it became an 
important town; a cathedral and a monastery were 
designed for it, the abbot of which latter was after- 
ward the famous Peter Martyr of Angleria, author 
of De Orbe Novo, which contained the first published 
account of the discovery of America. Sevilla Nueva 
long since fell to ruin, and the only remains of it 
to-day are a few hewn stones and mounds of earth. 
In 1688 Sir Hans Sloane, who came to Jamaica 
with the Duke of Albemarle, wrote The Natural 
History of Jamaica, and was the virtual founder 
of the British Museum, reported the existence of 
extensive ruins here. But about 1530, from some 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 209 

cause, the Spaniards abandoned the north side of 
the island and went to the southwest, where they laid 
the foundations of San Jago de la Vega, now called 
Spanish Town. 

The Spanish occupation continued for a century 
and a half, but there are few reminders of it now. 
Don Diego Columbus is the reputed founder of Se- 
villa; and the title of his son, Don Luis, is perpetuated 
in the marquisate of La Vega, or the plain in which 
Spanish Town stands; there is a town called Porus, 
after the Spaniards (Porras) who mutinied against 
Columbus; and the Pedro River reminds us of Don 
Pedro Esquimel, at one time governor of Jamaica 
and a cruel oppressor of the Indians. 

If the Spaniards had been humane and observant 
of international rights, Jamaica might long have re- 
mained in their possession; but the same causes that 
operated against them in the fitting out of priva- 
teers and the encouragement of buccaneering now 
worked their ruin in this island. A treaty had been 
signed between Spain and England in 1630, but the 
Spaniards had not observed even the first article of 
it, which was " that there should be peace, amity, 
and friendship between the two crowns and their 
respective subjects in all parts of the world." 
Though publicly professing friendship with England, 
yet the Spaniards privately reserved the right to 
oppress all English subjects found by them in the 
seas or territories discovered by Columbus. They 
chased English ships, placed English seamen in the 
stocks and sent them to the galleys. In one instance, 
according to Sir "Walter Raleigh, they murdered a 



210 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

crew of twenty-six Englishmen by tying them back 
to back and then cutting their throats. They drove 
the French and English out of Saint Kitt's in 1630 
(while the treaty was being signed), out of Tortuga 
in 1638, and out of Santa Cruz in 1650, practicing 
on them the same outrageous cruelties as were in- 
flicted upon the Indians. When at last sturdy 
Oliver Cromwell attained to power, he instituted in- 
quiries into these outrages, and entered protests, 
assuring the King of Spain, through his minister in 
London, that he should demand freedom from the 
practices of the Inquisition and free sailing in the 
West Indies. To these demands the minister re- 
plied that " to ask liberty from the Inquisition and 
free sailing in the West Indies was to ash his mas- 
ter's two eyes; and that nothing could be done on 
those points but according to the practices of former 
times." 

Cromwell rejoined, in effect, in the words of an- 
other: "I know of no title that the Spaniards hath 
but by force, which by the same title may be re- 
pelled. And as to the first discovery — to me it seems 
as little reason that the sailing of a Spanish ship 
upon the coast of India should entitle the King of 
Spain to that country as the sailing of an Indian or 
English ship upon the coast of Spain should entitle 
either the Indians or English unto the dominion 
thereof! . . . The Spaniards have contravened the 
Treaty of 1630. War must needs be justifiable 
when peace is not allowable." At all events, Crom- 
well proceeded against the Spanish colonies in the 
West Indies in order to maintain the prestige of 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 211 

the British name, which had been so foully sullied 
in the reign of Charles I. He caused to be fitted out 
a great expedition, under the command of Admiral 
Penn, father of our famous William, the land forces 
of which were under General Yenables. This expe- 
dition was at first unsuccessful in an attempt upon 
Hispaniola, but the Spaniards in Jamaica promptly 
capitulated on the 11th of May, 1655. 

The Spaniards made an attempt to regain the 
island a few weeks before Cromwell's death, but were 
driven away, never to return. When Charles II 
came to power again, Spain made a plausible plea 
for its restoration to her on the ground that it 
had been captured by rebel subjects of the English 
crown; but the king, while willing enough to disavow 
the acts of Cromwell, was equally ready to profit by 
his prowess in the fields of war as well as of diplo- 
macy, and refused to part with it. 

Through the efforts of the Protector several 
thousand Irish and colonial settlers were induced to 
emigrate to Jamaica, and as they were not disturbed 
by Charles, even though some of them had been ac- 
tive in securing his father's execution, the island soon 
became quite populous and prosperous. A great 
measure of its original prosperity was due to the 
gathering there of the buccaneers from Tortuga, 
and it was not long before Port Eoyal, the chief 
harbor, became the liveliest city in the West 
Indies. 

Chief among the degenerate buccaneers was one 
Henry Morgan, a Welshman, who had risen to promi- 
nence by deeds of blood, by captures of Spanish 



212 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

ships, and the sacking of Spanish cities, like Car- 
tagena, Puerto Bello, and Panama. By treachery 
and murder he had acquired an immense fortune 
through the connivance and partnership (it was openly 
charged) of King Charles II himself. At any rate, 
after he had served as lieutenant governor of the 
island (during the absence of the governor, the Duke 
of Carlisle), he went to England and was most honor- 
ably received by the king, who conferred upon him 
the honor of knighthood, so that to history he is 
known as Sir Henry Morgan. His great predeces- 
sors, Drake and Hawkins, had come to the West 
Indies with knightly honors adorning their brows, 
and had won distinction despite their handicap of 
title; but "Sir Henry" won his spurs through 
dastardly deeds, bloodstained and smelling of the 
gallows, and thus earned the favor of royalty. The 
old proverb, however, of " set a thief to catch a 
thief " was well illustrated in his case, for while he 
was deputy governor the poor buccaneers fared ex- 
ceedingly ill at his hands. He knew their haunts 
and he knew their ways, and so pursued them with- 
out mercy, hanging some and shooting others, until 
at last not enough were left to form a " corporal's 
guard." While they lived, however, and while 
piracy and buccaneering were profitable, how they 
made the streets of Port Royal resound with their 
revelries, and enriched Jamaica with plunder derived 
from the Spaniards! 

This port was known as the wickedest as well as 
the richest city in the islands, and it was considered 
by many as a judgment from Heaven that before 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 213 

the century ended it was nearly destroyed by an 
earthquake. It was in that memorable year of 1692, 
about midday, the 7th of June, that the sands upon 
which Port Eoyal was built slipped into the sea, 
carrying with them vast piles of rich merchandise, 
warehouses and dwellings, a church, the fortifica- 
tions, and hundreds of unfortunate people, who were 
ingulfed by the waves. 

Almost as many people perished of the pestilence 
generated from the mutilated corpses floating in the 
bay as by the earthquake, so that the calamity was 
felt all over the island. In an old cemetery on the 
opposite side of the bay was one tombstone that 
bore this quaint epitaph: "Here lies the body of 
Lewis Galdy, Esquire, who departed this life at Port 
Royal, the 22d December, 1736, aged 80 years. He 
was born at Montpelier, France, but left that country 
for his religion, and came to settle in this island; 
where he was swallowed up by the great earthquake 
in the year 1692; and by the providence of God 
was, by another shock, thrown into the sea and 
miraculously saved by swimming, until a boat took 
him up. He lived many years after in great repu- 
tation, beloved by all who knew him, and much 
lamented at his death." 

Port Royal may have contained, as one of its 
survivors, a clergyman, remarked, " the most un- 
godly people on the face of the earth " ; but nothing 
of the sort was alleged of another place that was 
swallowed up by the sea in a similar manner fifty 
years later. This place was Savana la Mar, in the 
parish of Westmoreland, which was swept by a tidal 



214 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

wave during a fierce hurricane, and not " a vestige 
of man, beast, or habitation left behind." 

Another memento of the Port Royal earthquake, 
preserved in the museum of the Jamaica Institute, 
is the bell of the church which was destroyed at that 
time. It is said that to-day, when the sea is calm, 
one may see the ruins of the houses submerged on 
that awful day in June, 1692. 

At the time Cromwell's soldiers wrested Jamaica 
from the Spaniards there were few if any Indians 
remaining. Despite their bravery and intelligence, 
the aboriginal inhabitants were soon driven to the 
mountains and finally exterminated. In caves and 
ravines to-day are frequently found relics of those 
people, in the shape of celts and pottery, fragments 
of canoes, and skeletons. The English conquered 
the Spaniards and drove them from the island, but 
their negro slaves, to the number of about two thou- 
sand, fled to the mountains, where they persistently 
stayed, resisting every species of blandishment and 
every attempt to re-enslave them. There they 
and their descendants maintained themselves, even 
though the best of British soldiery chased them about 
at intervals for more than a hundred years. 

As early as 1656 one of the British officers re- 
ported to Cromwell that " they must either be de- 
stroyed or brought in upon some terms or other, 
or else they will prove a great discouragement to 
the settling of the country." And, indeed, his pre- 
diction was soon verified, for they were continually 
on the warpath, constantly waylaying the unsus- 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 215 

picious soldiers and committing massacres. In 1663 
they were offered a full pardon, twenty acres of land 
apiece, and freedom from all manner of slavery, if 
they would surrender; but having unrestricted range 
of a vast tract of interior country capable of support- 
ing thousands, they did not accept these conditions. 
Eighty years after the conquest, between 1730 and 
1740, these " Maroons " had become so insolent in 
their depredations that two full regiments of regular 
troops, besides all the militia of the island, were sent 
to subdue them ; but never took a prisoner, and killed 
but few of these wary blacks. 

Their leader at that time was an uncouth dwarf 
named Cudjoe, and their retreat in the fastnesses 
of the John Crow Mountains was called Xanny Town, 
after his favorite wife. Cudjoe was a pagan, and, 
together with all his followers, worshiped the African 
deities of Obeah, or the gods of sorcery-working wiz- 
ards. Deep down in a romantic gorge where two 
rivers meet, after plunging their waters over a rock 
nine hundred feet in height, in a seething caldron 
called " Xanny's Pot," into which, legend relates, 
the black witch had power to cast the white soldiers 
who pursued her. The barbarous blacks believed all 
this, for, though the troops were at one time on their 
trail for nine successive years, in the end the Maroons 
were more numerous than at the beginning, owing to 
accessions of runaway slaves. Old Cudjoe himself 
was declared to be in league with the devil, whom he 
was thought to resemble, and many a time he drew 
the white troops into ambush in that wild and rugged 
country only to slaughter them like sheep, until the 



2 If) THE STORIED WEST [NDIES 

waters of the " Pot " were tinged with blood, and but 
few survivors escaped. Even when, at last, one of the 
British captains succeeded in dragging a pair of 
mountain howitzers up the cliffs commanding Nanny 
Town, and shelled their stronghold, though the Ma- 
roons were at first panic-stricken and some burled 
themselves over the precipices, the main force merely 
scattered, like chickens before a hawk, and flanked 
the enemy by meeting in the rear and cutting the 
troop to pieces. Chief Cudjoe was at first astonished, 
but not demoralized. " Dis here da new fashion for 
fight," he said, as the shells came whizzing into the 
town, and, bursting, scattered death on every baud. 
" Da buckra man firs' he fire big ball arter you, and 
den de big ball heself fire nudder arter yon ag'in. 
Caramba! Dis buckra more cunnin' dan tudder! " 
As stealthy and cunning as American Indians, these 
forest-born Maroons skulked through the woods on 
all sides of the noisy troops, but always out of sight 
until the right moment for delivering their fire with 
most fatal effect. 

Finding that they could not subdue the Maroons 
by methods used in civilized warfare, the Jamaicans 
in 1737 resolved to import some Indians from the 
Mosquito Coast, and as these last were greater adepts 
at bushfighting even than the wild negroes, they soon 
ran them down and brought them to bay. Tn 1738, 
the scene of war having shifted to another portion 
of the island, a treaty of peace was concluded with 
the Maroons at Trelawney Town, under Captains 
Cudjoe, Accompong, Johnny, Cuffee, Quaco, " and 
several other negroes, their dependents and adher- 




M 



218 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

ents, who have been in a state of war and hostility, 
for several years past, against our sovereign lord the 
king, and the inhabitants of this island," whereby 
they were assured their liberty forever, granted a 
large tract of land in the mountains, and permitted 
unrestricted trade with the whites. On their part 
the Maroons agreed to maintain the peace, to return 
all runaway slaves that should seek an asylum with 
them, and to render aid in quelling local insurrec- 
tions and repelling any foreign invader. In 1760 
they were put to the test when a terrible outbreak oc- 
curred of the fierce Koromantyn blacks, who com- 
mitted fearful atrocities. A party of Maroons came 
to the assistance of the whites, and made great show 
of zeal, ranging the woods for several days, and 
finally appearing with a large number of ears, 
which they averred they had cut from the heads of 
negroes they had killed, but which, it was later ascer- 
tained, they had procured from blacks already 
slaughtered and left on the field of battle by the 
white militia! 

The existence of a body of free negroes in the 
midst of a slave population, even though less turbu- 
lent than the Maroons, could not but prove an ex- 
citant to frequent outbreaks and a source of great 
apprehension to the planters. But the wild blacks 
continued to enjoy their freedom unmolested until 
the year 1795, when two of them, having been de- 
tected in stealing pigs, were sent to the workhouse 
and given thirty-nine lashes on the bare back. 
When released, they immediately went to their reser- 
vation and roused the whole population by a recital 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 219 

of the indignities that had been heaped upon them. 
They had been whipped, and by the black driver of 
the workhouse, in the presence of fugitive and felon 
negro slaves, some of whom they themselves had ap- 
prehended! This act was an offense to their pride 
which the whole body of blacks resented, and at once 
the mountains were on fire with revolt. Upon re- 
viewing the measures that had been adopted in pre- 
vious campaigns, it was found that great results had 
been obtained from the employment of dogs, packs 
of which had been furnished by the churchwardens 
of each parish of the island. As these had long since 
become exterminated, the local assembly voted an 
appropriation for the purchase of a pack of Cuban 
bloodhounds, and agents were sent to Cuba for that 
purpose. So, after an interval of about two centuries, 
the Spanish methods used against the Indians of the 
islands were about to be employed upon the successors 
to the aboriginal inhabitants. The commissioner 
who had been sent to Havana for the dogs arrived at 
Montego Bay with forty Spanish huntsmen, mostly 
mulattoes, and one hundred hounds. Prepara- 
tions were immediately made to set these monsters 
on the trails; but no sooner was the news of their 
arrival carried to the Maroons than they hastened 
to sue for peace. " It is pleasing to observe," says 
the ancient historian, " that not a drop of blood 
was spilt after the dogs arrived in the island." A 
pacification was arranged within a week, or on the 
21st of December, 1796, and in June of next year 
the chief offenders were banished to Halifax, Xova 
Scotia, where for a while they worked on the fortifi- 
16 



220 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

cations, and about the opening of this century were 
sent to Liberia. 

Thus it came about that the Spanish negroes, who 
had maintained their independence for nearly one 
hundred and fifty years, were at last only subjugated 
by the employment of Spanish bloodhounds. Such 
Maroons as had refrained from participating in this 
outbreak were left undisturbed, and their descend- 
ants still dwell in the island, where they form a 
people apart from other blacks. Should my readers 
ever visit Jamaica, perhaps they will find it worth 
their while to call on the Maroons, the settlement 
most easily reached being that of Moore Town, near 
the John Crow Mountains, not far from famous l^anny 
Town, in the parish of Portland. Even should one 
feel disappointed in the aspect of the toAvn and 
people, the journey thither will repay any reason- 
able outlay, taking one through mountain passes 
hung with luxuriant foliage, and by streams with 
roaring waters. 

By the " articles of pacification," in 173 8, the 
Maroons bound themselves to assist in recovering run- 
away slaves and in suppressing insurrections. One 
hundred and twenty-seven years after this treaty was 
signed, in 1865, they were called upon to observe 
these provisions. Slavery was abolished in 1834, 
and so there were no runaway slaves to recover; but 
there had been insurrections of the blacks at various 
times. In 1865 some discontented colored people 
rose in revolt against what they termed the injustice 
of the white minority, and it was even suggested that 
the white people should be killed or expelled, and 



JAMAICA AND THE MAROONS 221 

another black republic, like that of degenerate Haiti, 
established. 

The whites have always been hopelessly in the 
minority in Jamaica, so long ago as 1692 being in the 
proportion of one to six, and at the end of the nine- 
teenth century constituting only one fortieth of the 
total population. But for the saving grace of that one 
fortieth, however, Jamaica would not hold the rank 
she does to-day. Still, the revolt occurred, more 
than a score of whites were massacred, and property 
destroyed. It was suppressed with salutary rigor, and 
the ringleaders summarily shot. The rebels scattered 
and fled to the mountains, and when the Maroons 
were called upon to fulfill their treaty obligations 
and assist her Majesty's troops in suppressing the 
rebellion they responded with alacrity. After the 
task was accomplished, the Maroon warriors were 
invited to Kingston, the capital, and then the white 
people of Jamaica had their first glimpse of these re- 
doubtable negroes. They were black and brawny, 
with the independent carriage of men who had ever 
maintained their independence. Some of them dis- 
played silver medals which their ancestors had re- 
ceived in the time of the Georges, and these relics, as 
well as the stipulations under which they had come to 
the white man's assistance, carried the memory back 
to those days when the Maroons were a terror and a 
menace to Jamaica. 

Since the emancipation, owing to the scarcity of 
labor and the consequent depression in the sugar-rais- 
ing industry, more attention has been paid to the 
growing of bananas and other tropical fruits, with 



222 



TIIK STORIED WEST INDIKS 



the result that the black proprietors bave greatly 
increased in number during the past i<'n years. They 
;ir<' taking u|> lands in the mountains, and, ;is the 
largest fruit plantation in the world, containing forty 
thousand acres, lies adjacent i<> the M!oore Town 
region, the Maroons also are becoming interested, and 
are turning from the hunting <>f wild bogs to tilling 
land in the valleys devoted i<> banana culture. 




Aboriginal mealing atones, Jamaica 



CHAPTEE XVII 

PUERTO BIOO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 

Puerto Rioo, popularly though improperly called 
Porto Rico, was one of the first of the islands to be 
colonized by settlers from Hispaniola, though not 
until seventeen years after its discovery by Colum- 
bus. After the Endians of the Higuey, the eastern 
province of Hispaniola, had been subjugated, Gov- 
ernor Ovando sent thither as his lieutenant a sol- 
dier- who had boon prominent in the conquest, named 
Ponce do Loon. He was a veteran campaigner, hav- 
ing taken part in the wars with the Moors in Spain, 
and had come to the Now World with Columbus on 
his second voyage. He was with him when he landed 
at Aguadilla to water his fleet, and could not but 
notice its beauty and fertility. 

" The fleet remained here two days," says Peter 
Martyr the historian, " without seeing an inhabitant. 
Bui there was a spacious walls from the shore, formed 
with trees, interwoven al the top like an arbor, which 
led to a village of twelve houses placed in a circle, 
one of them remarkable for its size; and at the end of 
the walk there was a balcony covered with beautiful 

plants." 

There is scant mention of Ponce do Leon in the 
chronicles of Hispaniola, but from the very fact that 

22:5 



224 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

he was selected by the infamous Ovando to govern 
the province which had been so cruelly harried by 
the Spaniards, we may infer that he was a man fitted 
for bloody deeds, even though he has come down to 
us as a model of knightly courtesy. Captain Ponce 
de Leon might have stayed there, probably, as long as 
he chose, but from the Indians who frequently came 
across the channel separating the two islands, and 
which is only ninety miles in breadth, he learned 
that the mountains of Puerto Eico, which could be 
seen in clear weather from the headlands of Higuey, 
abounded in gold. 

That they were most beautiful, and their sides 
clothed with valuable woods, he also knew from his 
own observations in 1498; so he sought and obtained 
permission from Ovando to go across the channel 
and investigate. Although terrible atrocities had 
been perpetrated in Hispaniola since the first coming 
of the Spaniards, yet the Indians of the neighboring 
island seem to have had no knowledge of them, for 
they received Ponce and his soldiers with unsuspicious 
hospitality. Cacique Agueynaba, who resided at or 
near the present town of Aguadilla, admitted the 
Spaniard into the bosom of his family, and even 
exchanged names with him, in token of friendship. 
He also showed him his magnificent possessions, 
abounding in agricultural wealth, and took him to 
rivers that ran over sands of gold. This was suffi- 
cient for Ponce, and leaving some of his companions 
as guests of the cacique, he returned to Higuey and 
organized his expedition, which landed in Puerto 
Rico some time in the vear 1509. 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 225 

The Indians at first were peaceable, and in fact 
Ponce de Leon had more trouble with his own coun- 
trymen than with the natives; for while he was effect- 
ing the conquest Don Diego Columbus came out to 
supersede Ovando, and appointed two of his friends to 
the government of the island, one of them being the 
redoubtable Miguel Diaz, the same who had married 




Casa Blanca, Ponce de Leon's castle. 

the Indian caciquess, and had led the Spaniards to the 
mines of gold. King Ferdinand also named one Cris- 
toval de Sotomayor as governor; but finally Ponce de 
Leon prevailed and in the end was confirmed as ade- 
lantado. Founding the first city on the north coast 
and calling it Caparra, Ponce proceeded to extract 
all the profit he could from his new possession, and be- 



226 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

came so oppressive that the Indians revolted. They 
were of the same racial family as the natives of Ilis- 
paniola, but ;is their island had been subject for main 
years to the invasions of the Caribs they had become 
somewhat schooled in warfare, and loved a fight 
almost as much as the doughty old Spaniard him- 
self. 

Ponce had patched up a peace with his rival, So 

tomayor, and assigned him a repartimiento of Indi- 
ans, among them being the brother and successor to 
Agueynaba, who had so well received the Spaniards 

on their first visit, Sotomayor had fallen in love with 
the cacique's sister, it seems, and the first, intimation of 
trouble was from her; but the gallant hidalgo would 
imi heed the warning, and so was ambushed and killed 
while on Ins way to Caparra. The Indians were slow 
at organizing a rebellion, because they had conceived 
the idea that the Spaniards were immortal; hut, one 
of the caciques, named Brayoan, shrewdly deter- 
mined to test tins alleged immortality of the newcom- 
ers, and abide by tile result. He ordered two of his 
subjects who were carrying a Spaniard named Salzedo 
through the forest to fall upon him at the first river 
they should cross, and keep him under water a while. 
This they did until the poor fellow was drowned, 
when they took his body to the hank of the river and 
watched by it until there was no longer any doubt 
of his death. At once the slumbering flame of revolt 
spread over the island, and soon five thousand war- 
riors were marching upon Caparra. The force under 
Ponce's command numbered less than a hundred, 
but all the men were armed with arquebuses and in- 



PUERTO RICO ASb THE VIBOIH ISLES 227 

i armor, bo that the mg 

unequal. But it was not until Ag .aba hhx : 
had a mortal wound that t. 

broken and the Indian- nod to the mounta':.-. Their 
fate was that of their race in other islands, and . 
ma: meath the 

d upon them by the Spaniards. Be- 
fore that centnr gone "hey ha. . .-. 




'* Mammiform " stones, Puerto Rico aboriginal earring*) 



. and we know of them now only through 
tradition and bv the reli left behind. T 

relies, unique and rare , _ 

and desirable objects for the "hat 

lians had advanced farther on the road to 



228 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

civilization than either the Caribs of the Lesser An- 
tilles, or their Arawak neighbors of Haiti. 

By this time Ponce de Leon was well advanced 
in vears, and would rather have spent the remainder 
of his life in repose than in fighting Indians; but 
snch was not to he his lot. There came to his ears 
an Indian tale to the effect that there existed, in an 
island of the Bahamas, a wonderful fountain, the 
waters of which were not only healing, but capable 
of restoring youth to the aged. The old warrior was 
credulous; he had wealth, and he had vessels at his 
command; so he set forth from his island in search 
of Bimini, the Fountain of Youth. TTe sailed through 
the Bahama chain, visiting, among other islands, the 
veritable Guanahani where Columbus had landed in 
149^, and questioning the natives about the object 
of his search. They too had heard of Rimini, but 
could not inform him exactly where it was, so he 
kept on northward for many days until he sighted 
the coast of a country the fields and trees of which 
were gay with fragrant blossoms. T need hardly 
sav that this land was none other than our own 
Florida, which he so named on account of having 
discovered it on Palm Sunday, or Pascua Florida. 
TTe first sighted it in about the latitude of Saint 
Augustine, and coasted southward until he reached 
a group of islets which he called the Tortugas, be- 
cause he and his men captured one hundred and 
seventy sea turtles (Spanish, tortugas), besides four- 
teen sea wolves and a great number of pelicans. 
Returning to the Bahamas, he touched at an island 
which lie named La Vieja, or the Old Woman, on 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 229 



account of finding there as its sole inhabitant an 
aged crone, who told him that she could guide him to 




i * 



Bimini, and was taken on board his vessel. With 
this old dame as pilot the Spaniards were more for- 



230 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

tunate, for they found the famed Bimini, an island 
of verdant fields and crystal springs; but the waters 
of the latter, alas! possessed not the power of reju- 
venescence. Disappointed in his main quest, Ponce 
de Leon yet rated his discoveries so highly as to re- 
port them in person at King Ferdinand's court, and 
by his sovereign he was made adelantado of Bimini 
and Florida. 

If he had been younger, he might have made 
more of his desultory achievements; but his years 
wore upon him, as shown in the futile attempt he 
made, in 1514, to subdue the Caribs. He left 
Puerto Rico with three ships and a fine arma- 
ment, a great display of confidence and flourish of 
trumpets; but at the very first island at which he 
touched for wood and water the party he had sent 
ashore was ambushed by the Caribs, several men 
killed and wounded, and others carried off as prisoners 
to the mountains. This untoward event took place 
at the island of Guadeloupe, where Columbus first 
encountered these fierce Indians. Disgusted and dis- 
heartened, Ponce de Leon set sail for home again, and 
for several years after that sulked in his castle on the 
coast. But in 1521, stirred to action by the stories 
coming to his ears from Cuba and Mexico, he fitted 
out a last expedition for the exploration and conquest 
of Florida. His usual fortune attended him, for in 
the very first encounter with the Indians he was 
wounded in the thigh by an arrow. His men car- 
ried him on board ship and set sail for Cuba, where 
he died soon after arrival. The object of the ex- 
pedition was abandoned and the remains of the gal- 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 231 

lant old soldier were taken back to Puerto Rico, 
where at last they rest, in a leaden case similar to 
that which contains the ashes of Columbus in Santo 
Domingo. 

Now that Puerto Rico is an American possession, 
any one may freely inspect the relics of Ponce de 
Leon in that island, chief of which is the castle he 
built, the " Casa Blanca," just before sailing on his 
last voyage, and which is one of the finest structures 
in the city of San Juan, with an inclosed garden 
attached, having an outlook over the sea. 

The city of San Juan, capital of Puerto Rico, 
was founded about 1520. Governor Ponr-e having 
removed thither from Caparra. It contains, besides 
the castle erected by him, the finest fortifications to 
be found in America; or, rather, the massive walls 
contain within their line of circumvallation the city 
itself — the only example we possess of the kind. 
It- great castle, Morro, was begun not long after 
Ponce de Leon's day. but was not completed until 
15^4, and the entire system was only perfected by 
1771. 

The history of Puerto Rico, since the extinction 
of the Indians, has been mainly uneventful, except 
for the occasional attacks of pirates and the visits of 
hurricanes. In 1520 the town of San German was 
sacked by Trench pirates, and the coast region was 
ravaged by the Caribs. Sir Trancis Drake and Sir 
John Hawkins attacked San Juan on their last voy- 
age to the West Indies, in 1595. The Dutch attacked 
the capital in 1615, the English in 1678, and the 
latter frequently made futile attempts to land here, 



232 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



their last being under Abercrombie in 1797. But 
the massive walls of San Juan have withstood every 
effort made to breach them during more than three 
centuries, even resisting the terrible fire of modern 
cannon, when Admiral Sampson bombarded the for- 
tress in the summer of 1898. 

Much might be said of Puerto Rico; but, as of 
Cuba, a great deal has been already written, espe- 





Aboriginal "mask" and "collar," Puerto Rico (carved stone). 



cially since the Spanish-American War. It holds the 
proud distinction of being the first island in the West 
Indies to come under our flag, and, as the first of our 
possessions in the American tropics, it will probably 
be the theater of events having more than local sig- 
nificance. When, in the summer of 1898, Puerto 
Rico became a possession of the United States, the 
flag of Spain had floated over it three hundred and 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 233 

ninety years, never once having been lowered by a 
foreign foe.* 

Having acquainted ourselves with the most im- 
portant historical events that have taken place in 
the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles — Cuba, Ja- 
maica, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico — let 
us now voyage a little farther, and visit the islands 
lying between them and the north coast of South 
America. 

East of Puerto Pico we find an irregular group 
of isles and islets known as the Virgins, comprising 
Sombrero, Anegada, Virgin Gorda, Saint John, Saint 
Thomas, and Santa Cruz. All are interesting — no 
portion of the world more so. Anegada, for instance, 
with its ponds fed from the sea by subterranean chan- 
nels, and the resort of gorgeous flamingoes during 
the rainy season; Virgin Gorda, with its gold- and 
copper-veined mountains containing caves once the 
resorts of pirates and smugglers; Tortola, which 
derived its name from the gentle doves that inhabit 
its cliffs; Saint John, the ancient abode of long-ex- 
tinct Indians; and finally Saint Thomas, for more 
than two hundred years a possession of the Danes. 
All are English except the two last named, and in 
their midst lies the great bay called after Sir Francis 
Drake, who assembled his fleet here when on his 



* The island is described in detail in the author's Puerto Rico 
and its Resources; while Cuba and the Spanish-American War are 
treated at length in his History of Spain for Young Readers; 
both published in 1899. 



234 



THE STOWED WEST INDIES 



way to attack Hispaniola. Most of them have fine 
and sheltered harbors, but ('specially Saint Thomas 
and Saint John, on which account they have several 
limes been near becoming an appanage of some 
greater power than little Denmark. The Govern- 
ment of the United States, in fact, once negotiated 



, ■ ■ ■ ■- 






W'yJ , ■ 




Harbor of Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas. 



their purchase (in 1867) at seven million five hun- 
dred thousand dollars, but the project fell through. 
There is a possibility that it may be revived; but 
since the acquisition of Puerto Rico by the United 
States the necessity for acquiring these islands as 
coaling stations for American war vessels no longer 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 235 

exists. Saint Thomas, though once the resort of buc- 
caneers and all sorts of sea gentry, and so rich that 
Spanish dollars were wheeled through its streets by 
the barrow load, has in modern times become sad 
and solitary. Its one bright jewel is its harbor, deep 
and capacious, and here lies its one town of Char- 
lotte Amalie, built on and at the bases of three 
beautiful hills, each hill crowned by a picturesque 
tower. 

Xow, as we have not the space for an extended 
description of the island's many attractive features, 
I am going to devote a few lines to a harrowing 
tale connected with one of those towers. It relates 
to pirates and piracy, the island and its adjacent seas; 
but I can not vouch for it as authentic. About the 
middle of the seventeenth century one Blackbeard, 
formerly known as Captain Teach, of Bristol, Eng- 
land, took to the high seas for a living, and became the 
scourge of the Spanish, Dutch, and English merchant 
marine. He had discovered in the island of Saint 
Thomas, then recently taken possession of by the 
Danes, a retreat after a pirate's own heart, for it 
abounded in hidden harbors, reef -inclosed inlets and 
bays, and high promontories that commanded wide- 
extended views of the surrounding seas. Between 
Blackboard's retreat and the place where the Danes 
had settled rose a hill about fifteen hundred feet in 
height, which concealed the pirates' operations, and 
so they landed at their leisure, carrying their guns 
and stores ashore. The compatriots of the immortal 
Hamlet had built a little red fort (which is still 
there), mounted it with cast-iron cannon (in position 
17 



236 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

to-day), and garrisoned it with a handful of stolid, 
wooden-headed soldiers. 

Hauling some cannon up to the hill crest, which 
commanded not only the town of Charlotte Amalie 
and its harbor, but all the outlying reefs and islets, 
Blackbeard saw that he had the Danes at his mercy, 
and is said to have chuckled gleefully. Right below 
him, standing isolate on the central hill, was the old 
tower I have mentioned, which, tradition states, was 
built before the first Europeans arrived there. That 
was the object of Blackboard's ambition, and if we 
had been on the hill above the port, on the night suc- 
ceeding the occupation of the crest, we might have 
seen a band of villainous cutthroats carefully wend- 
ing their way down the steeps in that direction. And 
the next morning, when the peaceful Danes gazed 
northward and saw the pirate flag, with its black 
field, skull and crossbones, flying from the parapet 
of the tower, we may well believe they were aston- 
ished. They hastened to point their antiquated cast- 
iron cannon at it, as a matter of course; but they 
never fired them off, for the pirate captain threat- 
ened to blow their fort " into smithereens " at the 
first sign of offensive operations. So the base in- 
truders were allowed, it is said, to stay there, right 
in the center of his Danish Majesty's island, and dic- 
tate terms to his high mightiness the governor. 
After this little matter was amicably arranged, 
Blackbeard brought down from the hill crest his 
stores of ammunition and plunder; not forgetting, 
you may be sure, his nineteen beautiful wives, whose 
faces were veiled from the rude gaze of curious spec- 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 237 

tators. And there they were cruelly incarcerated, 
these nineteen captive brides of the pirate, and only 
from the narrow slits in the tower could they look 
out upon one of the fairest prospects in the Carib- 
bean Sea. 

Now it is not pretended, even by the great Black- 
beard's eulogist, that these captive women loved their 
master; indeed, they probably hated him. But what 
could they do with a man who, when time hung 
heavy on his hands, said to his crew: " Come down 
into the hold, my merry men. I've got about a ton 
of brimstone there; we'll light it, and have a little 
inferno of our own " ? And as such a request was 
itself in the nature of a command, emphasized by a 
display of the pistols, cutlasses, and daggers which 
Blackbeard wore belted about his person, his crew 
always accepted the invitation with pretended alac- 
rity. After getting them into the hold of his vessel, 
with the hatches battened down, the genial pirate 
would light sundry pots of brimstone, previously pre- 
pared, and serenely await developments. As his 
own constitution was habituated to diabolical pas- 
times, Mr. Blackbeard seemed to inhale those fumes 
sulphureous as if they were " gales from Araby," 
and if one of his unfortunate messmates even ven- 
tured to cough he was promptly knocked on the head. 
And when at last, sneezing, coughing, sputtering, the 
tortured men essayed a bolt for outer air, their jolly 
captain simply crossed his hands, in each hand a 
pistol, and fired indiscriminately into the crowd of 
wretches, wounding and killing without compunction. 
That was Blackboard's idea of " a good time " ; at 



238 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



all events, it was simply one of his lighter pastimes, 
his really serious business being shown in making the 
hapless sailors who fell into his hands " walk the 
plank." 

How long Blaekbeard held the tower tradition 
does not state; but the time came when his dreadful 
deeds brought upon him the combined fleets of the 
nations which he had so long and violently outraged. 




Date palms, Charlotte Amalie. 



A sea dog born and bred, he could not long stay 
ashore, even though securely intrenched in the island 
of the Danes; so at last, leaving a portion of his 
harem in the tower, he descended to the harp-shaped 
harbor behind the mountain, and again ventured 
forth upon the sea. He had better have stayed ashore 
and dared fate in his tower, for it is matter of 
history that he met his match in the person of a 



PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLES 239 

valiant lieutenant in the English navy, who, after a 
bloody fight, overcame him and his crew, and sailed 
into a harbor on the coast of Virginia with the head 
of Blackbeard at the end of his bowsprit. It was 
the fiercest, most savage-looking head that has ever 
been seen since the Medusa shook her snaky locks 
and transformed living men to stone; for the face 
was covered to the eyes with bushy whiskers, black 
as night, and this enormous beard was adorned with 
wax tapers and lighted matches, when its owner was 
in life and in action, giving him an appearance noth- 
ing less than diabolic. The shaggy head was taken 
in triumph to shore, never more to wag in hideous 
jest, nor to determine the fate of wretches by a nod. 
" Blackboard's Tower " still stands on a hill above 
the quaint town of Charlotte Amalie; the little red 
fort is there, with its gaping old guns still pointing 
skyward, and the Danes are there, stiff and formal 
as of yore. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

IN THE VOLCANIC CHAIN 

Southeast of the Virgin Isles lie the Lesser An- 
tilles, extending in a curved line from 17° north 
latitude to within ten degrees of the equator. In 
these islands we find the perfection of insular 
beauty; mountains of great altitude; cliffs shooting 
ii]) abruptly from the sea, overhung with richest 
tapestry of tropical vegetation; silver sands shaded 
by bending palms — in very truth the realization 
of an artist's dream. Owing to their altitude they 
present not only every variety of climate, from 
temperate to tropical, but every beautiful aspect of 
vegetation, from the bananas and sugar canes of the 
coast to the feathery tree ferns of the cool and pleas- 
ant " high wood," with their giant trees hung with 
a tangle of lianes and bush ropes. Each island, in 
fact, is a partly submerged volcano, its sides, and even 
the extinct crater, clothed with luxuriant growths. 
Although there are several outlying islands, such as 
Anegada, Saint Martin, and Saint Bartholomew, the 
real chain of volcanic isles begins with a pair of 
peaks belonging to the Dutch, named Saba and Saint 
Eustatius. 

Having camped in every one of them they seem 
to me like old and loving friends, and it would be dif- 
240 



IN THE VOLCANIC CHAIN 241 

ficult for rue to name the island with the greatest 
charms. Each isle has its attractions, some natural, 
some historical, but there is not one we can omit from 
notice. -Beginning with Saba, we find it an isolated 
mountain peak sticking up out of the sea, with hardly 
an accessible point; yet in its extinct crater, nearly 
nine hundred feet above the sea, lives a little com- 
munity of Dutch origin, the men of which, though 
actually sky dwellers, are the best sailors anywhere 
to be found. In seeking out this mountain hamlet, 
which, by the way is called " Bottom," from being 
situated in the bottom of the crater, I had to land 
upon a surf-battered shore at the imminent risk of 
my life, and climb nearly a thousand feet, up a steep, 
almost perpendicular cliff, by means of a narrow, 
tortuous path. 

I do not know that Saba has any history worthy 
of chronicling; but its sister isle of 'Statia ha- some- 
thing in its keeping well worthy our investigation, 
and likely to stir our pulses when discovered. Hold- 
ing this secret in abeyance a bit, let me say that, 
like Saba, it consists mainly of a mountain shooting 
straight up out of the sea, but with longer slopes, 
deeper hollows, and more accessible -bore. Eustatius 
is celebrated for its beautiful volcano, symmetrical 
and magnificent, and for its deep crater hole. The 
summit may be reached by a few hours' climbing, 
when one may not only stand on the rery lip of the 
crater, but descend to the lowest part of the concavity. 
It is about a thousand feet deep, and so long has the 
old volcano been quiet that the sides and bottom are 
lined with great tree-, where the wood pigeons coo all 



242 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

day, and beneath which the agoutis and other tropical 
animals hide from the light of the sun. At night the 
bats and owls flit across the black space, the tall trees 
sway and moan, and hollow sounds come out of the 
crater. I know this to be so, because I once passed 
a night camped on the crater brim, in order to study 
the nocturnal phenomena. 

To the inhabitants of the island the mountain is 
known as the Quill, and the crater as the Punch 
Bowl — the latter probably derived from the fact that 
many merry parties in times past have visited and 
lunched here. The island is owned by the Dutch, 
but English is spoken here as well as in Saba. In 
the latter island may still be found descendants of 
Dutch sailors who sailed with Admiral Van Tromp, 
who cruised with a broom at his masthead in token 
that he had swept the seas. In Saint Eustatius are 
many relics of the olden time, when the riches of the 
East Indies and Europe were made tributary to the 
West. Once there were fine plantations here, and 
the surface of the plains was covered with waving 
sugar cane ; but now there is neither estate, nor cane, 
nor toiling slave: all have passed into the limbo of 
departed glory and greatness. 

Now for the historical tradition 'Statia so proud- 
ly cherishes. You would not expect to find the his- 
tory of our early colonies linked with that of this 
diminutive islet, obscure and forgotten, on the 
outer verge of the Caribbees; yet so it is. It is a 
bit of neglected history, but it is authentic: that 
the flag of our colonies — subsequently, in altered 
guise, the emblem of our nation — was first recog- 




' i 



Ml 






244 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

nized by a foreign power in the harbor of Orange, 
Saint Eustatius! 

As Orange was a neutral port, and from the out- 
break of the Revolution seemed disposed in favor of 
the revolting colonies, many American privateers be- 
took themselves thither for supplies, and among them 
a brigantine, the Andrew Doria, from Baltimore, 
carrying fourteen four-pounders and manned with a 
crew of one hundred men. She sailed into the road- 
stead of Orange on the 16th of November, 1770, fly- 
ing the newly adopted American flag. Where her 
captain or owners obtained this flag has not been 
ascertained ; but that it was carried by the saucy pri- 
vateer, and that the fort of Orange responded to the 
vessel's salute with thirteen shots, in honor of the 
thirteen rebellious colonies — all this transpired in the 
correspondence carried on between the governor and 
con miander of the island and that of the neighboring 
island of Saint Kitt's. 

This governor of 'Statia was one Johannes de 
Graef, a doughty Hollander of good family, who, 
responding under date of December 23, 1770, to 
the English governor's remonstrance against " this 
insult to his Britannic Majesty," denied that any 
piratical vessel had received aid or comfort at his 
port. But he added, " As to the salute to the An- 
drew Doria, I flatter myself that, if my masters exact 
it, I shall be able to give such an account as shall be 
satisfactory." 

An honest rejoinder, though a diplomatic one. 
But the matter did not end here, for, the correspond- 
ence being referred to higher authority in 1777, the 



IN THE VOLCANIC CHAIN 245 

British ambassador at The Hague presented a me- 
morial to the High and Mighty States-General; de- 
manding a formal disavowal of the salute to the brig- 
antine in the port of \Statia, and the discharge and 
recall of the governor, Johannes de Graef. 

Their High Mightinesses answered by a counter 
memorial, disavowing any intention of an implied 
recognition of American belligerency or independ- 
ence, and the case was allowed to rest. But, while 
allowed to lapse for a while, it was eventually made 
a casus belli between the two countries and caused 
a rupture of their peaceful relations. England issued 
a manifesto in December, 1780, setting forth that 
the Dutch colonies, and particularly Saint Eustatius, 
had afforded protection and assistance to her rebel- 
lious subjects; had allowed their privateers to refit, 
to purchase arms and ammunition, and had bought 
their prizes taken at sea, in " violation of as clear 
and solemn a stipulation as can be made." 

The upshot was that secret instructions were sent 
to Admiral Lord Rodney, then at Xew York, who 
immediately sailed for the West Indies, and suddenly 
appeared off 'Statia in February, 1781. Governor 
De Oraef was unaware of any rupture between his 
Government and England, nor was there any at that 
time, and perforce complied with Rodney's sum- 
mons to surrender. The island was then at the 
height of a prosperity never regained, its ware- 
houses filled to bursting with -tore-, and the en- 
tire beach in front of Port Orange covered with to- 
bacco and sugar. The value of the plunder taken 
bv Rodney was estimated bv him at more than fifteen 



240 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

million dollars, exclusive of the shipping then in port, 
amounting to two hundred and fifty sail, many of the 
vessels richly laden; a thirty-two-gun frigate, and 
some smaller sloops of war. The reprehensible con- 
duct of Lord Rodney, and General Yaughan in com- 
mand of the land forces, in attacking an almost de- 
fenseless island before its Government was made 
aware of the breaking out of hostilities, was made a 
subject of official inquiry in the British Parliament. 
Mr. Burke moved that their actions were dishonest; 
but his motion was finally rejected by a vote of one 
hundred and sixty-three to eighty-nine. So it seems 
there were many Englishmen who believed the colo- 
nial Hollanders were unfairly dealt with and had 
justice on their side. But it mattered not; they 
never recovered their lost property, nor even their 
lost prestige; their port is to-day gone to ruin, only 
a few people occupying the remains of the town. 

Within sight, to the southward, lies the English 
island of Saint Christopher, commonly called Saint 
Kitt's, the jealousy of whose governor brought about 
'Statia's ruin. It is the mother colony of the French 
and English islands, having been settled in 1028 by 
adventurers of both nationalities. These settlers 
were dispersed by the Spaniards in 1030, but the 
following year many of them returned, and, as they 
had driven the native Caribs from the island after a 
great battle, for many years the French and Eng- 
lish lived together in peace, dividing the territory 
between them. Toward the latter part of the cen- 
tury they participated in the contentions of their 
respective nations, and strife broke out, hundreds 



218 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

being slain. By the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, 
the island was ceded to the British crown, and 
afterward attained a great prosperity; but in 1782 
the English, attacked by an overpowering force of 
French, under the Marquis de Bouille and the Count 
de Grasse, were compelled to surrender. The vic- 
tory was rendered fruitless, however, by the Treaty 
of Versailles (1783), when the island was restored 
to Great Britain, in whose possession it has ever 
since remained. 

A very beautiful island, it is also one of the most 
fertile in the West Indies, its soil being considered 
the finest to be found anywhere for sugar cane. 
A rich and populous belt entirely surrounds a wild 
and shaggy mountain district, within which is the 
celebrated Mount Misery, rising to a height of four 
thousand feet, clothed in glorious vegetation and with 
a crater well worth a climb to see. A reminder of 
the historic past here is Brimstone Hill, a detached 
peak seven hundred and fifty feet in height, near 
the western shore of the island, crowned by a forti- 
fication so strong that it was once styled the " Gibral- 
tar of America." But to-day it is well-nigh disman- 
tled, and the millions that were spent on it were worse 
than thrown away. It has never served any good 
use at all, for no enemy in recent times has ever come 
within reach of its obsolete old guns, as nobody has 
wanted the island since the English took it from the 
French, more than a hundred years ago. 

Now, though the fort on Brimstone Hill is de- 
serted, yet should you approach it stealthily, with- 
out making a noise — if that were possible — you 



IN THE VOLCANIC CHAIN 249 

might see humanlike animals disporting upon its bat- 
tlements and peering through the loopholes. They 
are not men, but monkeys, that now garrison this 
deserted "Gibraltar" of Saint Kitt's; or in other 
words, the " Kittefonians " of the forest. It is a curi- 
ous fact that there is no record extant of any monkeys 
having been found by the first settlers in the West In- 
dies; and another fact is that the only species now 
seen there are confined to the islands of Saint Kitt's 
and Grenada, both pertaining to the Lesser Antilles, 
or the Caribbees. And they are not indigenous, or 
true American monkeys, either; for they came over 
from Africa many, many years ago, and are de- 
scended from African ancestors which escaped to 
the forest and ran wild. Their existence here was 
long a puzzle to naturalists until I secured the skins 
of some, in 1880, and sent them to the United States, 
when it was seen that they belonged to the Old 
World, their chief distinguishing characteristic being 
a long, stiff tail, while the caudal appendage of 
American monkeys is prehensile. 

If it were within the scope of our inquiry into the 
origin of the West Indians to include these " little 
brothers " of the forest wilds, I might narrate my 
adventures while seeking them in their homes. At 
any rate, it may not seem irrelevant to mention that 
they now constitute a considerable majority of the 
Kittefonians; that they range the woods in troops, 
and descend from their forest fastnesses upon the 
cane fields and commit great depredations. 

Between Saint Kitt's and the adjacent island of 
Nevis is said to be a submarine passage through which 



250 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

the monkeys pass from one to the other ; at all events, 
the same species is found in the woods of the latter. 
Nevis is historically interesting as the birthplace of 
Alexander Hamilton, 1757; and as the island in 
which Lord Nelson was married in 1787, while cap- 
tain of his Majesty's ship Boreas. 



CHAPTEK XIX 

HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 

During more than two hundred years the French 
and English battled for the possession of the Lesser 
Antilles. For nearly a century after the genius of 
Columbus had added these tropical islands to the 
holdings of the Spanish crown, Spain denied all 
rights of navigation in the Caribbean Sea to other 
powers. She held it to be hers by right of discovery, 
and she purposed to hold it by might of ships and 
men; but about thirty years after San Salvador was 
discovered she found the French corsairs there 
already becoming annoying. They stealthily entered 
this body of water which she regarded as a mare 
dausum, or inclosed sea, and preyed upon her fat old 
galleons sailing up from the Isthmus with their rich 
freights of silver and gold. As early as 1529, or 
only thirty-seven years after the discovery, a French 
fleet had penetrated the sacred confines, and the 
Spaniards were thrown into consternation by the 
arrival of an English vessel at Santo Domingo. In 
1538 a bloody sea fight took place between a French 
corsair and a Spanish war ship; and three years later 
the French and English, combined, inflicted heavy 
losses upon the galleons, though the West Indies 
18 251 



o;>^ THE STORIED WEST [NDIES 

had then begun to decline, and the Peruvian and 
Mexican mines were failing somewhat. 

The efforts of other nations to deprive Spain of 
her conquests were onlv desultory, however, until 

near the end of the sixteenth century; and it was 
not until 157.} that Sir Francis Drake, that pirate 
o( high degree, came here with a well-defined inten- 
tion of inflicting all the harm he could to Spanish 
cities, towns, and treasure ships. At last, in despair 
of keeping others out, Spain seems to have relin- 
quished her rights to nearly all the islands south- 
ward from Puerto EUeo, while the French and Eng- 
lish, ignoring her completely, fought between them- 
selves as to who should secure these rich fields for 
colonization. 

The history of Martinique, for example, will suf- 
fice for that of nearly all. Though discovered by 
Columbus in 1502, it remained virgin territory until 
colonized by the French in 1635; but it was four 
times seized by the British — in 1762, 1781, 1704, 
and ISO!) — and finally restored to the French in IS 1 1, 
by whom it has ever since been held. Of the score 
and more of isles and islets which France won by 
the sword and settled with her colonists, less than half 
a dozen remain to her now within the confines of the 
Caribbean Sea. Thousands of lives and millions of 
treasure have been wasted in acquiring and defend- 
ing those islands of the Lesser Antilles, yet to -t lav 
not one is a profitable possession to the nation own- 
ing it. 

Of the two large islands owned by France in the 
West Indies, that of Guadeloupe is of greater area 



HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 258 

than Martinique, the former lying between the paral- 
lels of L0° and 17" north latitude, the latter two 
degrees farther south, with the English island of Do- 
minica midway the two. Guadeloupe really com 

prises two islands: an immense mountain mass, willi 

beautiful valleys and forest-covered hills, an extinct 
volcano, hot springs, and coffee plantations; separated 
by ;i narrow creels from a vast tract of lowland, <-<>v 
ered with sugar estates, level of surface and rich of 
soil. 

Martinique is about forty miles in length by 
twenty in breadth— like all the others, a congeries of 
mountains thrust up from the ocean depths, and co"v 
ered from mountain top to water side with tropical 
vegetation. Guadeloupe has two important cities, 
Basse Terre and Point a Pitre; Martinique also two, 
Saint Pierre and Port do France, the former the 
commercial metropolis, the latter the seat of govern 

men). Unlike its sister city, which lies on an open 

roadstead, Port de France (formerly known as Fort 

Royal) is sheltered in a deep hay, near the entrance 
to which Stands the fortress of Saint Louis, hnilt two 
oenturies ago. It was once a line city, and occupied 
by people whose manners and costumes were pat 

terned after (hose of La Belle France; but (ire and 
hurricane have done destructive work, and the Mood 

of blacks from the interior has obliterated nearly all 

evidences of refinement. Still, its site is handsome, 

and in the center of its s<ir<ni<\ or park, is a statue of 
the only daughter of America who rose to joint occu 
p:incy of Hie throne of Prance Josephine, the first 
wife of Napoleon Poiiaparfe. Ahoiit this statue, of 



HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 255 

pure white marble, more than in the island itself, 
perhaps, the stranger's interest centers. An inscrip- 
tion tells us that the birthplace of this illustrious 
woman lies just across the bay, at Trois Ilet, only 
four miles distant. 

It was as a naturalist, seeking rare birds, that I 
made my first visit to Martinique in 1878, and I 
lived a while at the plantation of La Pagerie, Jose- 
phine's birthplace, gathering there many a tradition 
relating to her early years, and from the records of 
Trois Ilet extracting information which, even at this 
late date, may not be amiss in this connection. 

When the English attacked Martinique in 1762, 
there existed here a society which could boast con- 
nection with the highest and noblest of France. 
Among other indigent noblemen who had left the 
land of their birth for ventures in the colonies was 
one Tascher, who came out here in the year 1726. 
He prospered from the beginning, and when his first 
son was born he had large estates of sugar cane, which 
were bestowed upon him at his marriage. Settling 
upon the estate of La Pagerie, across the great bay 
from Fort Koyal and the fortress, Joseph Tascher de 
la Pagerie devoted himself to the raising of cane 
and coffee. 

In 1757 there arrived in the island, as lieutenant 
governor of all the French Antilles, the Marquis de 
Beauharnais. The name was then well known in 
France, as there were five of that family, officers 
in service, on the naval registers. On June 10, 
1760, there was baptized, in the church of Saint 
Louis at Fort Koyal, the governor's son, Alexandre 



256 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

de Beauharnais, to whom Madame de Renaudine, 
Joseph Tascher's sister, stood godmother. 

Joseph was married in November, 1761, to the 
daughter of an ancient family resident here. Within 
a few months he was compelled to hasten to the 
defense of the island against the English, in which 
he acquitted himself bravely, and won the regard 
of the British commander, who permitted him to 
retire to his estate. From the hills above her 
house Madame Tascher witnessed the storming and 
capture of Fort Saint Louis and the surrender of 
the French force, in which her husband served; so 
it was amid scenes of great perturbation that the 
married life of this young couple began. The house 
in which Josephine was born, on the 23d of June, 
1763, was standing at the time of my first visit, 
though in ruins. Here, amid friends and slaves, this 
lovely Creole, who subsequently became one of the 
most famous of women, passed the happiest years of 
her life, but not without some sad experiences. 
When she was four years of age her father's resi- 
dence was destroyed by a hurricane, and the family 
took shelter in the building used as a sugar mill, 
which was her home for ten years more. The Tasch- 
ers were wealthy, as the islanders computed wealth, 
having one hundred and fifty slaves and vast acreage 
on the hill slopes of Trois Ilet; but the father never 
rebuilt the dwelling house, his spirit seemingly being 
crushed by repeated reverses. 

It was a disappointment to Monsieur and Madame 
Tascher that no son was born to them, but they named 
their second daughter Josephine, in honor of the first 



HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 25? 

of the father's family who had come to this hemi- 
sphere. At the age of ten she was sent to school 
at Fort Royal, passing her time there and on the 
plantation until she arrived at the age of sixteen. 
Her union with young Beanharnais seems to have 
been brought about by her aunt, Madame de Ren- 
audine, Alexandre's godmother. They were be- 
trothed before he left for France, whither Josephine 
followed, and where they were married in December, 
1779. 

In June, 1788, Josephine came back to Marti- 
nique with her daughter Hortense, having separated 
from her husband, and two years later she returned 
to France, never again looking upon the scenes of her 
childhood. There, after experiencing the horrors of 
the. Reign of Terror, after Beauharnais was exe- 
cuted, and she herself was imprisoned, narrowly 
escaping the guillotine, she met and was wedded to 
Bonaparte, who like herself was island born, and 
not native to the soil of France. 

A few miles from the plantation is the little 
bourg of Trois Ilet, where stands the church in 
which the future Empress of France was baptized, 
and where her father and mother are buried. This, 
in brief, is the history of Josephine's connection with 
Martinique; and after this digression (the only ex- 
cuse for which is to afford comparison between the 
obscurity of her birth and the elevated station to 
which she attained) we will follow the general trend 
of events toward the close of the eighteenth century. 

The English wrested nearly all the Eesser Antilles 
from the French; but when in 1768 the Marquis de 



258 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



Bouille was appointed governor of Guadeloupe and 
commander in chief of all the French forces in the 
Caribbees, affairs took on a different aspect. After 
the breaking out of the war of 1778, in conjunction 
with different naval commanders, he took nearly all 
the islands back again, his vigorous campaign cul- 
minating in the capture of Saint Ivitt's, the fall of 
Brimstone Hill, and defeat of an English fleet under 




The church at Trois Ilet. 



Admiral Hood. This commander was that same gal- 
lant Bouille who assisted Louis XVI in his futile 
attempt to escape from France and the guillotine, 
and who was later compelled to flee for his life from 
the country for which he had so long and so vainly 
fought. 

Lying just south of Martinique, and separated 
from it by a sea channel thirty miles in width, is the 
island of Saint Lucia, where thousands of brave men, 



HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 259 

led by misguided commanders, have left their bones 
and drenched with their lifeblood the soil of every 
hillside on its northern shores. Like the other isles 
of the Caribbees, it was a " bone of contention " be- 
tween England and France for nearly two centuries; 
but the most sanguinary contest took place here in 
the year 1778. The British troops were commanded 
by brave General Meadows, the French by gallant 
and dashing D'Estaing. Intrenched upon the 
" vigie " of Castries (which the English of to-day 
are fortifying against the world), the British awaited 
attack. While a murderous fire was kept up from 
their ships, the French, led by D'Estaing and the 
Marquis de Bouille, briskly advanced to the charge. 
They were at first enfiladed with terrible effect, 
but, notwithstanding the havoc, they charged with 
impetuosity, the British suffering them to advance 
close to their intrenchments, and then receiving 
them at the bayonet's point. Though the French 
were repulsed, they advanced again and again with 
incredible bravery, but at the third charge were com- 
pletely broken and retired in disorder, leaving on 
the field four hundred killed and eleven hundred 
wounded — a number in excess of the force they had 
attacked! The chivalrous D'Estaing asked and re- 
ceived permission to bury his dead and recover his 
wounded, making himself accountable for them as 
prisoners of war, and then left the island. Sailing 
southward he took the islands of Grenada and To- 
bago, where the British were not so strongly forti- 
fied, and thence went to the assistance of the Ameri- 
can colonists. 



260 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

This is but one of the episodes of that war be- 
tween France and England which brought about the 
defeat and humiliation of the former and the ulti- 
mate supremacy of the latter, and by which the his- 
tory of our thirteen colonies was inextricably inter- 
woven with that of these far-distant Caribbee Isles. 

These two great nations sent thither their largest 
fleets and greatest captains — Howe and D'Estaing, 
Rodney and De Grasse — and not mere local fortunes, 
but world destinies, hung upon the issue of events in 
this obscure quarter of the globe. Rodney had been 
held accountable for the surrender of Lord Corn- 
wallis, having failed to go to his aid on account of the 
plunder of 'Statia; but he soon made amends by the 
detention and subsequent destruction of the French 
fleet under De Grasse. Since the great naval battle 
that ensued between these commanders has such a 
bearing upon international history, I shall borrow 
the description by a historian of established reputa- 
tion, James Anthony Froude, who a few years before 
his death visited the Caribbees, and who says: 

" The West Indies were then under the charge of 
Rodney, whose brilliant successes had already made 
his name famous. He had torn the Lesser Antilles 
from the French ; he had punished the Hollanders for 
joining the coalition by taking Saint Eustatius. The 
patriot party at home [in England], led by Fox and 
Burke, were ill pleased with these victories; Burke 
denounced Rodney as he had denounced Warren Hast- 
ings, and he was called home to answer for himself. 
In his absence Demerara, the Leeward Islands, and 
Saint Eustatius itself were captured or recovered by 



HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 261 

the enemy. The French fleet, now supreme in the 
western waters, blockaded Lord Cornwallis at York- 
town and forced him to capitulate. The Spaniards 
had fitted out a fleet at Havana, and Count de 
Grasse, the French admiral, fresh from the victori- 
ous thunder of the American cannon, hastened back 
to refurnish himself at Martinique, intending to join 
the Spaniards, tear Jamaica from us [the English], 
and drive us finally and completely out of the West 
Indies. One chance remained. Rodney was ordered 
back to his station, and he went at his best speed, 
taking all the ships with him which could then be 
spared. It was midwinter, but he forced his way to 
Barbadoes in five weeks, spite of equinoctial storms. 
The Whig orators were indignant. . . . The Govern- 
ment yielded, and a peremptory order followed on 
Rodney's track : ' Strike your flag and come home ! ' 
Had that fatal command reached him, Gibraltar 
would have fallen and Hastings's Indian empire 
would have melted into air! But Rodney knew that 
his time was short and he had been prompt to use it. 
Before the order came the severest battle in English 
annals had been fought and won; De Grasse was a 
prisoner, and the French fleet was scattered into 
wreck and ruin! 

" De Grasse had refitted in the Martinique dock- 
yards. He himself and every officer in his fleet was 
confident that England was at last done for, and that 
nothing was left but to gather the fruits of the vic- 
tory which was theirs already. . . . All the Lesser 
Antilles except Saint Lucia were his own. . . . He 
held them all in proud possession: a string of gems, 



262 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

each island large as or larger than the Isle of Man, 
rising up with high volcanic peaks, clothed from base 
to crest with forest, carved into deep ravines, and 
fringed with luxuriant plains. In Saint Lucia alone 
the English flag still new, and Rodney lay there in 
the harbor of Castries. On April 8, 1782, the signal 
came from the north end of the island that the 
French fleet had sailed. Martinique is in sight of 
Saint Lucia, and the rock is still shown from which 
Rodney had watched day by day for signs that they 
were moving. They were out at last, and he in- 
stantly weighed and followed. The air was light, 
and De Grasse was under the highlands of Dominica 
before Rodney came up with him. Both fleets were 
becalmed, and the English were scattered and 
divided by a current which runs between the islands. 
The two following days the fleets maneuvered in 
sight of each other. On the night of the 11th Rod- 
ney made signal for the whole fleet to go south under 
press of sail. The French thought he was flying. 
He tacked at two in the morning, and at daybreak 
found himself where he wished to be — with the 
French fleet on his lee quarter. ... In number 
of ships the fleets were equal; in size and comple- 
ment of crew the French were immensely superior; 
and besides the ordinary ships' companies they had 
twenty thousand soldiers on board, who were to be 
used in the conquest of Jamaica. . . . The Eng- 
lish admiral was aware that his country's fate was 
in his hands. It was one of those supreme moments 
which great men dare to use and small men tremble 
at. He had the advantage of the wind and could 



HISTORIC BATTLEFIELDS 263 

force a battle or decline it, as lie pleased. With clear 
daylight the signal to engage was flying from the 
masthead of the Formidable, Rodney's ship. At 
seven in the morning, April 12th, the whole fleet 
bore down obliquely on the French line, cutting it 
directly in two. Rodney led in person. Having passed 
through and broken up their order he tacked again, 
still keeping the wind. The French, thrown into con- 
fusion, were unable to re-form, and the battle re- 
solved itself into a number of separate engagements, 
in which the English had the choice of position. 

" Rodney in passing through the enemy's lines 
the firsf time had exchanged broadsides with the 
Glorieux, a seventy-four, at close range. He had shot 
away her masts and bowsprit, and had left her a 
bare hull; her flag, however, still flying, being nailed 
to a splintered spar. So he left her unable at least to 
stir, and after he had gone about came himself yard- 
arm to yardarm with the superb Ville de Paris, the 
pride of France, the largest ship in the then known 
world, where De Grasse commanded in person. 

" All day long the cannon roared. One by one 
the French ships struck their flags or fought on till 
they foundered and went down. The carnage on 
board them was terrible, crowded as they were with 
troops. Fourteen thousand were reckoned to have 
been killed, besides the prisoners. The Ville de 
Paris surrendered last, fighting desperately after 
hope was gone, till her masts were so shattered that 
they could not bear a sail, and her decks above 
and below were littered over with mangled limbs. 
De Grasse gave up his sword to Rodney on the 



264 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Formidable's quarter-deck. The gallant Glorieux, 
unable to fly and seeing the battle lost, hauled down 
her flag, but not till the undisabled remnants of her 
crew were too few to throw the dead into the sea. 
Other ships took fire and blew up. Half the French 
fleet were either taken or sunk; the rest crawled 
away for the time, most of them to be picked up 
like crippled birds. 

" So on that memorable day was the English em- 
pire saved ! Peace followed, but it was ' peace with 
honor.' The American colonies were lost; but Eng- 
land kept her West Indies [a rather poor exchange] ; 
her flag still floated over Gibraltar; the hostile 
strength of Europe all combined had failed to twist 
Britannia's ocean scepter from her: she sat down 
maimed and bleeding, but the wreath had not been 
torn from her brow, she was still sovereign of the 
seas! " * 

* From The English in the West Indies. By James Anthony 
Proude. 



CHAPTEK XX 

BAKBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 

That great naval encounter, which has been 
called one of the decisive battles of the world, took 
place under the lee of beautiful Dominica, and in 
the channel between that island and Guadeloupe. It 
is worthy of note that these terrible struggles be- 
tween the French and English were nearly always 
futile, for the victors rarely retained what their 
hard-fought battles had won. Much of the spoil 
of 'Statia was afterward captured on the high seas 
by the French; nearly all the islands they had 
taken were restored to the English; and the splen- 
did Ville de Paris, De Grasse's flagship, together 
with other prizes, was sunk in a hurricane off Port 
Royal the same summer that she was taken by 
Rodney. Saint Lucia, at one time the only island 
of the Lesser Antilles uncaptured by the French, 
was awarded to them by the Treaty of Versailles in 
1783; but, retaken by Abercrombie in 1797, has ever 
since remained in English possession. 

But every island in the archipelago treasures the 
heroic deeds of those forgotten worthies of the past. 
Xear and to the south of Fort Royal, Martinique, 
rises huge, sea-surrounded Diamond Rock, which 
once upon a time, as it commanded the entrance to 

265 



266 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

the port, was seized and fortified by sailors under the 
command of Lord Howe after the capture of Saint 
Lucia. It is five hundred feet in height, with sides 
nearly perpendicular; but those brave British tars 
swarmed to its summit, and there, with scarce room 
enough for a foothold, they mounted several guns, 
with which they peppered away at every French craft 
that hove in sight, sending some of them to the 
bottom of the sea. But they were provisioned for a 
twelvemonth only, and when their supplies failed 




"His Majesty's ship Diamond Rock." 

they had to capitulate, as their commander sailed 
away and left them to their fate. They did so, how- 
ever, with all the honors of war, as defenders of " his 
Majesty's ship Diamond Rock " ! Near the south- 
ern tip of Saint Lucia rises a pair of miniature moun- 
tains between two and three thousand feet in height, 
called the Pitons, which, like Diamond Rock, are iso- 
lated from the main island, and which also the British 
at one time attempted to hold and fortify. But their 
steep acclivities were infested with that terrible ser- 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 267 

pent called the fer-de-lance, and the unfortunate 
sailors sent to mount the guns were fatally bitten, 
one after another, and rolled into the sea; so the 
attempt was abandoned. 

Next south of Saint Lucia, and in line with the 
general curve of the Caribbees, lies the island of 
Saint Vincent, with a volcano, now quiescent, that 
has the honor of being the last from which an erup- 
tion occurred in the West Indies. Its crater lake, 
twenty-five hundred feet above the sea, is a wonder 
worth visiting; and at one time, while seeking new T 
birds, I camped a week in a cave on its brim, observ- 
ing with intense enjoyment the phenomena of Nature 
at this altitude. On the " windward " side of Saint 
Vincent reside the last remnants of the black Caribs, 
who a hundred years ago gave battle stoutly to the 
British invaders of their tropical domain. They 
differ from the only other family of Caribs (in Do- 
minica) in being very dark of hue, and this is ex- 
plained by the wrecking of a slave ship here in the 
latter part of the seventeenth century, the survivors 
of the disaster having intermarried with the native 
Indians. In the year 1785, after committing great 
cruelties, the black Caribs were subdued, the major 
portion of them expatriated to the coast of Honduras, 
and their chief, Black Bulla, gibbeted alive in chains, 
suffering terrible torments for a week before he died. 

Southwardly stretching from Saint Vincent is an- 
other chain of isles and islets called the Grenadines, 
terminated by the larger island of Grenada. The 
Grenadines present the appearance of mountains 
based deep below the surface of the sea, and only their 
19 



268 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

tops protruding; but Grenada has not been so exten- 
sively invaded by the waters, and its chief harbor 
seems to have been the crater of an extinct volcano. 

Here, also, we are reminded of the once-dominant 
Caribs by the names of different places, as, for in- 
stance, the " Morne des Sauteurs," applied to a great 
cliff over which the last survivors were driven, and 
leaped to their death in the war of extermination. 

The islands of the Caribbees, or Lesser Antilles, 
appear on the map as segments of two concentric 
circles, the inner one volcanic, mountainous, compris- 
ing the main chain ; the outer of coral formation, low- 
lying and fragmentary. The most important of these 
outlying or " windward " islands is Barbadoes, about 
ninety miles to the eastward of Saint Vincent, all 
alone in the ocean. It was discovered by some 
Portuguese, who, finding here a luxuriant growth 
of wild fig trees, from the limbs of which great 
masses of filaments depended, called it Barbadoes, or 
Bearded. When first visited by the English in 1605 
there were no inhabitants, the natives having been 
killed or driven away, and the crew of the Olive 
Blossom, which had been fitted out by Sir Oliph 
Leigh, " a worshipful knight of Kent," took posses- 
sion by erecting a cross with the inscription " James 
King of England and this island." They did not 
tarry longer than was necessary to provision their 
vessel, though the island was extraordinarily fertile, 
wild pigs, parrots, and pigeons were abundant, and 
the sea abounded with fish of every sort. 

It was not until 1624, or the year following the 
planting of an English colony at Saint Kitt's, that 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 269 

Barbadoes was settled. Containing large and level 
tracts of the richest soil in the West Indies, Barbadoes 
from the very first flourished exceedingly, and in 
1650 it had a white population almost as large as it 
contains to-day, with a great number of negro slaves. 
It was then a royal and loyal colony, and so devoted 
to the interests of deposed King Charles that when 
Lord Protector Cromwell sent out a fleet and an 
army to bring its people to terms they made a stout 
resistance. In 1657, in addition to the negro slaves, 
the planters purchased several thousand Scotsmen, 
taken prisoners at the battle of Worcester and sold 
into slavery at fifteen hundred pounds of sugar per 
head. Although at first barbarously treated, many 
of them finally became themselves proprietors and 
planters, and there have been no white slaves there 
for at least two hundred years. The Indians of 
neighboring isles were often decoyed into slavery, 
however, and a curious narrative illustrating the con- 
ditions prevailing at that time may be found in The 
Spectator entitled Yinkle and Yarico. 

About the middle of the eighteenth century the 
number of white inhabitants was still less than twenty 
thousand, while the negroes had increased to more 
than sixty thousand. It was about this time, or in 
1751, that the island was honored by a visit from one 
who afterward caused the British a great deal of trou- 
ble, but who was then unknown. It was at the age of 
twenty, and as companion of his brother Lawrence, 
who was then in the last stages of consumption, that 
George Washington made his only foreign voyage. 
Lawrence's health had failed, and his physician or- 



270 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

dered him to the West Indies; and, as he desired 
George to accompany him, the latter obediently com- 
plied. They were five weeks on the voyage, which to- 
day would consume less than a week; but the young 
surveyor and major of militia improved every moment 
in making a practical application of his knowledge 
of navigation, of which he had hitherto studied only 
the theory. Once landed at Bridgetown, the capital 
of that island of superabundant blacks and sugar 
cane, George saw what was probably his first theatri- 
cal performance — the tragedy of George Bromwell — 
of which, in his conscientious way, he enters a critical 
notice in his journal. This silent companion of his 
travels bears testimony that he was in love with the 
island and its hospitable planters; but still he Avrites: 
" How wonderful that such people should be in debt 
and not able to indulge themselves in all the luxuries 
as well as the necessaries of life! Yet so it happens. 
Estates are often alienated for debt. How persons 
coming to estates of two, three, or four hundred acres 
can want, is to me most wonderful." 

The brothers hired a pleasant cottage about a mile 
from town and commanding a view of the bay, where, 
as aristocratic landed proprietors themselves, they 
were visited by the first people of the island. At the 
house of one Judge Maynards they met the members 
of the " Beefsteak and Tripe Club " ; but the meats 
on the table did not provoke young Washington's en- 
comiums so much as their tropical concomitants, the 
delicious fruits, of which he writes admiringly. Un- 
fortunately for his scheme of enjoyment, George was 
brought low by an attack of smallpox, after he had 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 271 

been two weeks on the island, and though he soon re- 
covered from it his face bore marks of the disease 
the rest of his life. So we may say that this was the 
only gift the " Father of his Country " received from 
Barbadoes; and Lawrence's health not improving, 
George was sent back to bring out his wife, departing 
on the 2 2d of December for Virginia, and arriving at 
Mount Vernon the 1st of February, 1752. Lawrence 





*&*flfc 



}*•*& 



•■.*■ * 

Carib boys at play, Saint Vincent. 

soon followed, and died in June of that year, leaving 
to his devoted brother that famous estate with which 
his name is associated. This was the first, last, and 
only time George Washington was outside the bor- 
ders of the American colonies, though within their 
bounds he made many perilous journeys. 

Aside from some outbreaks among the slaves, 
Barbadoes has rejoiced in uninterrupted peace ever 



272 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

since its foundation as a colony, and having continued 
in English possession for nearly three hundred years, 
it is distinctly British still, and most devoted to the 
motherland. It is as completely English as Mar- 
tinique and Guadeloupe are French, as shown in the 
public structures of its capital and the town dwellings 
of the wealthy planters. But it is in the country 
districts that Old England is brought to mind, for, 
were it not for the tropical character of the climate 
and scenery, one might easily fancy himself in the 
rural parts of Great Britain, with the churches and 
chapels of ease draped in masses of ivy, and the well- 
kept churchyards adjacent. Xear the center of this 
beautiful and highly cultivated island stands Cod- 
rington College, the oldest educational establishment 
in the islands, founded in 1716. It is entirely sur- 
rounded by plantations of sugar cane, and within its 
ivy-covered walls its favored students find seclusion 
from a distracting world if not the gratification of 
every taste. Outside are avenues of palms, where 
the majestic oreodoxa uplifts its golden coronal of 
leaves, and one can hardly imagine a more delightful 
retreat for the scholar or care-free man of books. 

The emancipation of the Barbadian slaves, in 
1838, was not attended by the disastrous consequences 
that ensued in other islands. Owing to their great 
number and the scarcity of arable land upon which 
they could obtain a living almost without labor, as in 
the more mountainous islands, the black Barbadians 
had the choice either to work or to starve. They 
chose the former alternative, and to-day there is no 
more intelligent and industrious population than that 



BAKBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 273 

of Barbadoes, where there are at least eleven hun- 
dred and fifteen people to the square mile; and of the 
one hundred and six thousand four hundred acres, at 
least one hundred thousand acres are in 'a high state 
of cultivation. 

The sponsors of African slavery in America were 
the Spaniards, who introduced it into Santo Do- 
mingo during the governorship of the inhuman 
Ovando, and with the approval of the humane Las 
Casas. But while the Spaniards were responsible 
for its introduction, the English were equally culpa- 
ble, for they soon shared in its profits by transporting 
the unhappy victims from Africa to the TTest Indies. 
The first Englishman to sully his country's honor by 
engaging in this nefarious business was Sir John 
Hawkins about 1562, and more than two hundred 
years later the trade in human flesh was so lucrative 
that when the citizens of Kingston, Jamaica, peti- 
tioned the home Government to discourage it, the 
merchants of Bristol and Liverpool, through the Earl 
of Dartmouth, declared: "We can not allow the 
colonies to check or discourage in any degree a traffic 
so beneficial to the nation "! This was in 1775; but 
in the first part of the next century the evils of 
the traffic became so apparent that agitation was 
directed toward its extinction, and with the result 
that not only was it eventually suppressed, but the 
slaves of all English colonies were emancipated. 
England was generous to her planter colonists, grant- 
ing them large sums as reimbursement for their 
losses: but from emancipation dates the decay of 
West Indian prosperity. The negroes in all the 



274 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

islands except Barbadoes, finding it possible to supply 
their wants without much labor, refused to work on 
the sugar plantations, and the consequence has been 
the virtual ruin of the islands. In many islands, as 
in Jamaica and Trinidad, large importations of East 
Indian coolies were made, under indentures, who 
temporarily supplied the demand for labor, and be- 
came attractive features in the population with their 
Oriental garb and manners. 

France followed England in liberating her slaves, 
in 1848, and most reluctantly Spain, about twenty 
years later; so that now, and particularly since the 
United States released the Cubans and Puerto Ricans 
from their political servitude, all the people in the 
vast archipelago are free. We have seen, in our re- 
view of Haiti's history, that the black man has not 
shown an aptitude for civilization and progress at all 
encouraging to those who have his welfare at heart. 
He has retrogressed at every point, since the restrain- 
ing hand of a stronger race has been removed, and 
in many cases has reverted to genuine African bar- 
barism. Although there are some exceptions, nota- 
bly that of the black chief justice of Barbadoes, 
yet on the whole the outlook for the negro's future 
is not hopeful. In the mountainous islands, particu- 
larly, where the blacks can reside in a seclusion un- 
broken by frequent contact with the whites, they 
practice the black arts of African sorcery under the 
name of obeah, and indulge, as in Haiti, in barbaric 
seances and festivals, at which sometimes children 
are killed and eaten. In truth, the cannibal Caribs 
did no worse, for, like the present semisavages of 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 275 

the islands, they were but " ritual cannibals/' or per- 
formed the hideous ceremony from misguided reli- 
gious motives. 

But this is a subject too vast for adequate treat- 
ment here. We will conclude our short excursions 
into these historic fields by mention of the only re- 
maining islands of importance in the West Indies 
that we have not visited — Tobago and Trinidad. One 
hundred and twenty miles west of south from Bar- 
badoes lies the little-known island of Tobago, which 
though at present forlorn and almost destitute of 
white inhabitants, was at one time contended for with 
avidity by such great powers as England, Holland, 
and France, and passed from one to the other like a 
shuttlecock of evil fortune. Twice, thrice it was 
ravaged and rendered desolate, and not only de- 
prived of its aboriginal inhabitants, the Caribs, but 
of such as had settled here, coming over from Great 
Britain and the Continent. 

Tobago is about five miles longer than Barbadoes, 
but has only half its width, containing one hundred 
and fourteen square miles of hills, valleys, and moun- 
tains; in the main covered with virgin forest, and 
with a population of less than twenty thousand. Dif- 
fering, like Trinidad, in geological formation from 
other islands of the West Indies, it was probably at 
some distant time sliced off from the adjacent conti- 
nent of South America, for its flora arid fauna are 
continental in character and not insular. Flora and 
fauna, both, are tropical and wonderful, as I can tes- 
tify, having lived a while here, playing Crusoe, 
years ago. In sooth it was here that I collected the 



276 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

material for a book of adventure called Crusoe's Is- 
land : a Bird-Hunter's Story, in which I trace the con- 
nection between this island of Tobago and that where 
the mythic hero Eobinson Crusoe lived his grand and 
solitary life. Tobago, then, is the ideal island of 
Defoe, and not Juan Fernandez on the farther coast 
of South America : as is set forth in the book referred 
to. Aside from its most fascinating natural and his- 
torical features, Tobago should be of interest to all 
hero lovers from having at one time been the resi- 
dence of Paul Jones, that indomitable fighter and 
privateer who won the first naval successes of our 
Revolution. As a French colony during a brief 
period, Tobago had a voice in the election of Bo- 
naparte; but since the first decade of this century 
it has been governed as a crown colony of Great 
Britain. 

At last we reach the southernmost island of the 
West Indies, Trinidad, discovered by Columbus on 
his third voyage, in 1498, and from whom it received 
its name on account of its mountain range with three 
prominent peaks, suggestive to him of the Trinity. 
It contains seventeen hundred and fifty-four square 
miles of fertile valleys, high mountains, and elevated 
hills, yet holds a population but twenty thousand 
in excess of little Barbadoes. Its staple products are 
the Fame as those of the other isles, to which may be 
added the native woods and bitumen, of which latter 
there is an inexhaustible supply in the wonderful 
Pitch Lake, one hundred and ten acres in extent. 
From this lake is obtained the greater portion of the 
bitumen or asphalt used in the paving of our streets, 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 277 



the contract for exploiting and exporting which is 
held by an American company. Trinidad has been 
in British possession since 1797, when Abercrombie 
took it from the Spaniards jnst previous to his assault 
upon the Alorro at San Juan de Puerto Rico. 

The most famous personage with whom Trinidad 
is identified, next to Columbus, is that brilliant Eng- 
lishman of the Elizabethan period, Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh. It was on this island, in truth, that he met 
with the most singular of his adventures, and from 



m 



I 



THIRD & FOURTH VOYAGES 

OF COLUMBUS 

TO THE WEST INDIES 




it that he sailed, in 1618, to ignominious death at the 
hands of the royal headsman. Sir Walter's atten- 
tion to this island off the Orinoco's mouth was at- 
tracted by the strange story then prevalent of a 
kingdom situated up that river called Manoa, where 
lived the native king, El Dorado, or the Gilded One. 
Many fabulous tales were related of this mythic 
kingdom and its gilded ruler, of which the following 
is the oldest known: He lived in the midst of moun- 
tains of diamonds and surrounded by golden hills, 



278 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

where the precious metal was so abundant that the 
sovereign fairly reveled in riches. Every year he 
and his people held a solemn sacrifice, at which 
this wealthy king smeared his body with turpentine 
and then rolled in gold dust. Thus gilded and re- 
splendent, he entered his canoe and was taken by his 
nobles to a temple in the center of a lake, where 
he deposited offerings of gold, emeralds, and other 
precious things, after which he plunged into the 
water to bathe and remove his coating of gold. 

The Spaniards believed this story, and more than 
one expedition was sent in search of El Dorado and 
the mines of gold — one in particular as early as 1560, 
starting from Peru, descending the Amazon and 
Orinoco, and encountering terrible privations on the 
way. In the year 1595 Raleigh set sail from Eng- 
land with five ships, arriving at Trinidad early in the 
summer and exploring the Orinoco quite a distance 
from its mouths, but without finding more than a 
tradition of the gilded king, and no gold worth the 
trouble. The strangest part of the story is that he 
carried back to Elizabeth most glowing reports of 
his wonderful discoveries, and assured the credulous 
queen that at sight of her glorious image the king 
himself had swooned in admiration. The best result 
of that expedition was the book he wrote about it 
called The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beau- 
tiful Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the Great 
and Golden City of Manoa, which the Spaniards call 
El Dorado, performed in the year 1595, by Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, Knight. There is much in this book 
besides its title, long though it may be, and many 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 279 

shrewd and quaint observations upon things discov- 
ered, and some things unseen, by the gallant knight. 
Like Columbus, he saw the fat " oisters " growing on 
trees — the mangroves, which at low tide were sub- 
merged; he described the " uglie serpents called 
largatos," or alligators, and tasted the flesh of the 
" cachicama," or armadillo. 

The island of Trinidad," he wrote, " hath the 
form of a sheep hook and is but narrow; the north 
part is very mountainous; the soil is excellent and 
will bear sugar, ginger, or other commodity that 
the Indies yield. It hath store of deer, wild porks, 
fruits, fish, and fowl. It hath also for bread sufficient 
maize, cassavi, and of those other roots and fruits 
which are common everywhere in the West Indies. 
It hath divers beasts which the [East] Indies have 
not; the Spaniards confessed that they found grains 
of gold in some of the rivers. . . . This island is 
called by the people thereof ' Cairi/ and in it are 
divers nations; those of Punta Carao are of the Ara- 
wacas." 

Of the Pitch Lake he wrote: " New Year's Eve 
we came to anchor at Tierra de Bri, short of the 
Spanish port some ten leagues. This is a piece of 
land some two leagues long and a league broad, all 
stone pitch or bitumen, which riseth out of the 
ground in little springs or fountains, and so swim- 
ming a little way it hardeneth in the air and cov- 
ereth all the plain. There are also many springs 
of water, and in and among them many fish. . . . 
There is that abundance of stone pitch that all the 
ships of the world may therewith be laden from 



280 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

thence, and we made trial of it in trimming our ships 
to be most excellent good, and melteth not with sun, 
as the pitch of Norway, and therefore for ships trad- 
ing with the south parts very profitable." 

Alas, poor Sir Walter! If he had but confined 
himself to observations on the natural features of 
the island and had not meddled with politics, he 
might have saved his head. But he could not refrain 
from having a trial of strength with the Spaniards, 
to whom the island belonged, and as England and 
Spain were at peace this put him in bad odor at home. 
The charges of his enemies that he wished to embroil 
his country in a war with Spain bore hard upon him 
when, after his benevolent protectress died, King 
James gained the throne. 

After those long years of imprisonment in the 
Tower he was released expressly to make another 
voyage in search of El Dorado, and to prove true 
those fabulous stories he had invented to please 
Queen Elizabeth; at all events, he risked his life in 
the venture. There was doubtless something sinister 
in the perfidious James's permission to cruise in Span- 
ish waters, with the proviso that Raleigh was not to 
provoke an encounter with the Spaniards, for the 
king knew this to be well-nigh impossible. However, 
he reached Trinidad a second time in 1617, but was 
taken sick and could not go up the Orinoco, so he gave 
the command to another. This captain, Keymis, 
fought the Spaniards, contrary to Sir Walter's 
orders, lost several men, among them young Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh, and burned a town; but found no gold 
with which to return and avert the king's displeasure. 



282 THE STORIED WEST INDIES 

Raleigh had good occasion to reproach this recalci- 
trant officer, knowing well that his own life Avas now 
forfeited, and his reproaches were so keen that poor 
Keymis ran himself through with his sword. 

Thus Trinidad and El Dorado rang the death 
knell of the great Sir Walter, for immediately upon 
his return in the Destiny (name of evil omen to 
him) he was arrested, dragged to the Tower, and 
six months later executed. Although a frivolous 
courtier, Raleigh was a farseeing statesman, and 
doubtless really intended that his country should 
acquire this beautiful island, two hundred years be- 
fore it actually became a British possession. But in 
his aspirations he was thwarted by that " wise idiot/ 7 
King James, who subordinated his kingdom's good to 
private and unholy aims. 

Raleigh's treatment of the Indians was humane, 
even if his hatred of the Spaniards was intense, and, 
wrote a historian of the last century, " the Caribs of 
Guiana still fondly cherish the tradition of his alli- 
ance, and to this day preserve the English colors 
Avhich he left with them at parting." 

Standing with him on that lone island off the 
Orinoco's mouth, at the threshold of the great south- 
ern continent, Ave can not but recall that it Avas Ra- 
leigh AAdio sent out that expedition which resulted in 
planting the first settlers of English blood in North 
America. The hundred men under Ralph Lane and 
Sir Richard Grenville, Avho composed the Roanoke 
colony rescued the next year by Sir Francis Drake 
and taken back to England, sailed through the West 
Indies in 1585. And that ill-fated band under Mar- 



BARBADOES, TOBAGO, AND TRINIDAD 283 

iner White, following in their tracks in 1587, cruised 
joyously from island to island in the Caribbees ere it 
was swallowed up in the wilds of Roanoke. With this 
party were the parents of Virginia Dare, the first 
child of English parentage born in America, and who 
was baptized on the 20th of August, 1587. 

Yes, before us rise the wraiths of many gallant 
spirits at one time most intimately connected with the 
romance and history of these islands. Through the 
" Serpent's Mouth," which separates Trinidad from 
Venezuela, Columbus sailed with trepidation into 
the Gulf of Paria, thence out by way of the " Mouth 
of the Dragon " to his discovery of the islands of 
pearls, Cubagua and Margarita. Did not these is- 
lands, together with Dutch Curacao and Buen Ayre, 
pertain more particularly to South America than to 
the West Indies, we might have many a tale to tell of 
them in connection with the history of the famous 
Spanish Main. Along this coast sailed gallant Ojeda, 
and with him one Amerigo Vespucci, who became 
world-famous as the purloiner of laurels belonging 
to Columbus. Over in Tobago grew the plant 
which Raleigh has the credit of having introduced 
into England — whether wisely or not — tobacco, 
which obtained its name, it is said, from that island. 
On the main, westerly from Trinidad, is an ancient 
Indian settlement, Ameraca-pan, from which (and 
not from Amerigo Vespucci), some have claimed, was 
really derived the name bestowed upon the Western 
continents. 

Not alone are great names, held dear by several 
different nations, intimately associated with West 
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I X D E X 



Aborigines of the West Indies, 6, 

23, 37, 39. 62-74. 
Agouti. 57. 73. 
Aguadilla. harbor of. 77. 
Agueynaba, cacique. 224. 227. 
American Fla^r. the, first salute of. 

244. 
Anacaona, caciquess. 98-103. 
Anana, or pineapple, 9. 57. 
Areytos, native songs, 37. 

Bahamas, the, 1, 4, 12. 

Bahia Honda, 16. 

Balienatos, small islands, 17. 

Baracoa. harbor of, 18, 19 ; island of. 
20. 21 ; town of, 185. 

Barbadoes. island of, 268-274 : slaves 
of, emancipated, 273. 

Bartholomew Columbus. 93: gov- 
ernor of Hispaniola, 94, 96, 98; 
Anacaona's gifts to, 103 ; death 
of. 122. 

Batabano. bay of, 29. 

Bateria de la Punta Castle. 195. 

Battlefields, historic. 251-264. 

Bimini, island of. 230. 

Blackbeard. pirate, 235-239. 

Blanco, governor of Havana. 133. 

Bloodhounds. Cuban. 219. 

Bobadilla, governor of Santo Do- ; 
mingo, 104, 105, 120, 121. 



Bohechio, cacique, 91, 96-99. 

Bohios, or huts. 25. 

Babeque, or Land of Gold, 34, 

35. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 163-168, 170. 
Bouille, Marquis, 258. 
Bow of Ulysses, the, 60. 
Brimstone Hill, fort of, 248. 
Buccaneers, 72, 140-143 ; origin of, 

146 ; classes of, 147, 148. 

Cabanas, harbor of, 16. 

Cabo de la Cruz. 28, 32. 

Cacique, Indian, 21, 23, 40, 57. 

Cannibal Caribs of Dominica, 63- 
72; area occupied by. 65 ; of Saint 
Vincent, 73 : relics of. 74. 75. 

Canoe, 19, 116; discovered by Co- 
lumbus, 55, 56. 

Caonabo, cacique, 89. 91. 93. 98, 99. 

Caparra, first city of Puerto Rico, 
225. 

Casa Blanca, Puerto Bico. 231. 

Cascabel, relic, 88. 

Cassava, native bread, 8, 37, 57. 

Catalina, 89. 

Cat Island. 2. 3. 

Cervera, Admiral, fleet of. 191-194. 

Charlotte Araalie. town of. 234. 235. 

Christophe, Henry, king of Haiti, 
165, 169, 176-182. 
287 



288 



THE STORIED WEST IN DIMS 



Christopher's Cove, 205'; Indians of, 
205,206. 

Cibao, or gold region, 91. 

Ciceroo, parrot, 71. 

Cienfuegos, port of, 13. 

Codrington College, 272. 

Columbus, Christopher, first voyage 
of, 8, L0; at Guanahani, 3; land- 
ing place, Watling'e Island, 5; on 
north coast of Cuba, 18, 17 ; in 
search of Cipangb, 17; at Bara- 
coa, L8; at Cape Maysi, 26; on 
south coast of Cuba, 27 : at Bay 
of Guantanamo, 27; on north 
coast of Jamaica, 28, 81: at Bay 
of Batabano, 29; on south shore 
of Jamaica, 31 ; sails around Haiti, 
31 ; at Isabella, 31 ; made four 
voyages to America, 32: names 
the islands, 30; journal of, 40, 41, 
42 ; Santa Maria, flagship of, 35 ; 
wreck of, 43; guest of Guacana- 
gari, 41, 45, 46 ; builds fort at La 
Navidad, 48; finds gold, 51; en- 
ters Bay of Samana, 58 ; sails for 
Spain, 54; departs on second voy- 
age, 59; discovers Puerto Rico, 
77 ; founded Isabella, 80; in San- 
to Domingo, 83-86; builds forts, 
85; subjugates the Indians, 88; 
in prison, 105 ; sent back to Spain, 
106; where are the remains of? 
127; placed in cathedral, Santo 
Domingo, 128 ; alleged transfer to 
Havana, 128; tomb of, 128; re- 
cent discovery of remains, 130 ; 
casket containing bones of, 131 ; 
author views remains of, 132 ; 
driven by storm to Jamaica, 205; 
predicts an eclipse of the moon, 
205 ; death of, 208 ; discovers 
Trinidad, 276 ; discovers Pearl 
Islands, 283. 



Columbus Point, 2. 

Concepci6n de la Vega, fort of, 85, 

86; bell tower of, 80, 87; attack 

of, 94. 
( Jonchs of the Bahamas, 7. 
( Jortes, lleiiian, 185, 187. 
Cotton discovered by Columbus, 8, 

24. 
Cotubanama, cacique, 91, 1 16. 
Crabs, 137. 

Cristobal Colon, battleship, 28. 
Crocodile, 56. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 210, 211. 
Croton eleutheria, a herb, 9. 
Cuba, island of, 18, 199; harbors of, 

14, 18; natives of, 0:5 ; invasion 

of, by United States troops, 202; 

an American possession, 202. 
Curari, poison, 69. 

Dare, Virginia, birth of, 283. 
De Grasse, Captain, 200-203. 
Dessalines, Jean Jacques, emperor 

of Haiti, 105, 170-170. 
Diamond Rock, 265. 
Diego Columbus, 119, 121, 208, 209. 
Diego Mendez, 95, 200; discovers 

gold, 90. 
Diego Velasquez, founded first city 

in Cuba, 20, 184, 189. 
Dominica, island of, 61. 
Doria, Andrew, a brigantine, 244. 
Drake, Sir Francis, 134, 189, 233, 

252. 

Edwards, Bryan, of Jamaica, 113. 
El Dorado, king, 277, 278. 
Eleuthera, island of, 9. 
Elizabeth, queen of England, 278. 
Evangelista, island of, 31. 

Farine made from manioc, 70. 
Faro Concha, or shell lighthouse, 25. 



INDEX 



289 



Fer-de- lanee, serpent, 267- 
Ferdinand, king of Spain, 88, 119. 
Ferdinand de Soto, 196. 
Fort« built and named, 48, 85, 86. 
Fountain of Youth, 228. ' 
French and English, struggles be- 
tween the. 265. 
Fronde, James Anthony, 248. 

Garden* of the Queen, the, 28; In- 
dians of, 29. 

Gold found. 108. 

Goleta. coasting vessel. 80, 81. 

Great Khan. 6, 62; Columbus sent 
embassy to. 21-23 

Grenada, island of, 207. 

Guacanagari. cacique, 21, 23, 40-45, 
57, 78, 88, 89. 

Guadeloupe, island of, 61, 63, 77, 
280, 253 ; waterfall of, 63. 

Guanahani, first land discovered by 
Columbus, 3 ; Indians of, 6. 

Guantanamo, bay of, 27. 

Guarionex, cacique. 90, 94, 95. 

Guira, instrument of music. 5-. 

Haiti, island of. 33. 35 : harbors of, 
39: natives of 63: revolution in, 
158, 163 ; governor of, 173, 174. 

Ilaitien, Cape. 57. 157. 

Hammocks. I I 

Havana, city of, 188, 195-198. 

Helps. Sir Arthur, historian, 112. 

Henrique, cacique. 135. 136. 

Hen-era, historian. 10, 17. 184. 

Higuey. province of, 91. 117. 

Humboldt, 16. 29. 30. 

Hurricanes, 196. 

Hyppolite, president of Haiti, 183. 

Indian corn (maize . 37, 57 
Indians, first seen by Columbus, 6. 
23: huts of, 23; of Cuba, 23; relies 



and implements of, 26, 37, 55 ; of 
Haiti, 7, 37-39 ; of Santo Domin- 
go, 90-96; gold found by, 108; 
tortured by Spaniards, 114; of 
Hispaniola, 118; antiquities of, 
214. 

Isabella, island of, 31 ; city of, 
founded, 80; ruins of, 82, 96. 

Isle of Pines, 31, 

Jarama, silk-cotton tree, 116. 
Jibara, hills of, 16, 18. 
Jones, Paul, privateer, 276. 
Josephine, empress, 255-257; statue 

of, 253-255 ; birthplace of 255. 
Journal of Columbus, 10, 11, 18, 5-3, 

56. 
Juana (Cuba;, 17. 

La Ferriere, fortress of, 178-180. 

Lagoons, 17, 80. 

La Navidad, 48 ; massacre at, 89. 

Landfall of Columbus, 3-5. 

La Pagerie, estate of, 255. 

La Eabida, monastery of, 49. 

Las Casas, bishop, 117, 122, 187 ; 

biography of, 122-125. 
Leclere, General, 164, 165, 169. 170. 
Antilles, the, 60. 240. 2&8; 

Columbus names the islands, 77. 
Limonade, Comte de, 177. 
Lolonnois, buccaneer, 148, 149. 
Lucayans, Indians. 7, 46. 

Macaca. province of, 32. 

Maguana. town of. 98. 

Maine, United States battle ship, 

sinking of the, 201. 
Manioc. 70. 72. 

Marco Polo. Venetian traveler, 21. 
Maria Teresa, Cervera's fiagship, 

1. 2. 
Marie Galante, island of, 61. 



290 



THE STORIED WEST INDIES 



Maroons, of Jamaica, 215-222. 
Martinique, island of, 252, 253. 
Martyr, Peter, historian, 97, 154, 208, 

223. 
Matanzas, port of, 16. 
Matapie, a basket, 72. 
Mayobanex, cacique, 95. 
Monte Cristi, 77, 78, 94. 
Montezuma, king of Mexico, 46. 
Montserrat, island of, 77. 
Morgan, Henry, buccaneer, 211, 

212. 
Morro Castle, 186, 195, 231. 
Mount Misery, 248. 

Narvaez, Pamphilo de, 196. 

Neiba, bay of, 98. 

Nevis, island of, 250. 

Nina, one of Columbus's fleet, 44, 51. 

Nispero de Colon, 84. 

Nuevitas. port and harbor of, 17. 

Nugget of gold, 108. 

Obeah, sorcerer, 274. 

Ocampo, circumnavigated Cuba, 31, 

184; at Hispaniola, 123. 
Ojeda, Alonso de, with Columbus, 

91-93, 122. 
Orange, fort of, 244. 
Ovando, Nicolas de, 106, 107, 109; 

barbarities of, 111, 112, 116. 
Ozama Eiver, 103 ; palace on, 119. 

Pan de Cabanas, 16. 

Pan de Mariel, 16. 

Parkman, author of Pioneers of 

France in the New World, 112. 
Parrots, 9, 10. 
Pedro de Cordova, a Franciscan 

monk, 121. 
Phipps, Captain William, 152, 155. 
Pinta, one of Columbus's fleet, 10, 

52, 53. 



Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, 35, 52, 
53. 

Pitch Lake, Trinidad, 276. 279. 

Pitons, mountains, 266. 

Ponce de Leon, 12, 196, 223-230; 
death of, 230. 

Porto Bueno, harbor of Jamaica, 
203. 

Port Royal, harbor and city of, 211- 
214. 

Puerto Plata, harbor of, 53. 

Puerto Rico, island of, 77, 223 ; In- 
dian relics of, 227 ; capital of, 231, 
232. 

Quisqueya, native name of Santo 
Domingo, 35. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 210, 277-283. 
Relics of West Indies destroyed, 

113. 
Remora, the, fish, 29. 
Rio del Oro, or River of Gold, 51, 52. 
Robertson, Dr., historian, 115. 
Robespierre, 158. 

Rochambeau, General, 167, 171, 172. 
Roderick de Triana, 10. 
Rodney, Admiral Lord, 245, 260- 

264. 
Roldan, 94, 104, 108. 
Roucou, coloring, 65. 

Saba, island of, 241. 
Saint Christophers, island of, 77. 
Saint Eustatius, island of, 241, 246. 
Saint Kitt's, island of, 145, 246. 
Saint Lucia, island of, 258, 265. 
Saint Thomas, island of, 234. 
Saint Vincent, island of, 73, 75; 

volcano of, 267 ; Caribs of, 267. 
Samana, bay of, 53, 90, 165. 
San Juan, city of, 231 ; battle of, 

193. 



INDEX 



291 



San Nicolas, city of, 37, 38. 

San Salvador, island of, first dis- 
covered by Columbus, 2, 3, 7, 8. 

Sans Souci, palace of, 178-180. 

Santa Cruz, island of, 77, 146. 

Santa Maria, 12 ; flagship of Colum- 
bus, 35 ; anchor of, found, 49 ; 
wreck of, 43. 

Santiago de Cuba, harbor of, 27, 
188; city of, 186-190; fall of, 194. 

Santiago de los Caballeros, city of, 
157. 

Santo Cerro, or Holy Hill, 83, 84. 

Santo Domingo, island of, 35 ; city 
of, 93, 165; founded, 96; origin 
of, 103 ; church and monastery of, 
122; ruins of first university in, 
122 ; the oldest European settle- 
ment in the New World, 126 ; old 
cathedral of, 127 ; extinction of 
Indians of, 136 ; president of, 138. 

Sargasso Sea, 55. 

Seats, aboriginal, 22, 26. 

Sevilla Nueva, city of, 208. 

Slavery, introduction of, 273. 

Spanish Town, 209. 

Ten Years' War, the, 201. 
Thunderbolts, 7. 



Tobacco, 283. 

Tobago, island of, 275, 276. 

Tortuga, or Turtle Island, 33, 35; 
buccaneers of, 33, 142 ; description 
of, 142, 143 ; resort of pirates, 149. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, 161-168. 

Treasure Cove, 150. 

Trinidad, port of, 29 ; island of, 276, 
279. 

Trois llet, 255. 

Turquino, a mountain, 28. 

Washington, George, 269-271. 
Watling's Island, landing place of 

Columbus, 3, 5 ; author's visit to, 

5,6. 
West Indies, the, history in epitome 

of, 284. 
Words added to our language, 57, 

63. 
Wrecks, Spanish, in Caribbean Sea, 

151. 

Xaragua, province of, 79, 97, 98, 104 ; 
massacre of natives of, 109, 119; 
Spanish atrocities in, 117. 

Yunque (the Anvil) mountain, 20, 
21. 



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